Many classic, successful products have been invented “by accident” – by an unintended mishap that just happened to turn out to be a brilliant stroke of R&D genius: Penicillin, the microwave, chocolate chip cookies and more.And the stories behind these incidents are always so fun and surprising that they catch our attention and stick in our minds for good.
Here are just a few of the classics. You have no doubt heard them, or similar versions of them, numerous times.
Ivory Soap
In 1878, in a Procter & Gamble soap production factory, one of the employee’s lunch breaks took longer than expected. The whole thing would have gone unnoticed, if not for a malfunction that got out of hand. Continue reading ‘Lucky Engineering Accidents’
Apocalyptic newspaper headlines cause panic. Panic induces paralysis. The media is overloading us with evermore information and commentaries about “the situation”: poorer quality of life, higher unemployment, pay cuts, zero real growth, etc. Most companies in the market usually react alike. Companies start operating on ‘automatic pilot,’ or, in the worst-case scenario, they act on impulse, adopting clichés which are not necessarily rational, like laying off workers, cutting wages, putting trainings on halt and such.
Inventive thought and innovation are usually seen as a prerogative reserved for markets in times of growth, while, in fact, during slowdowns and recessions, there are plenty of good reasons to be creative, to invest in innovation, develop innovative strategies and even launch new products.
