Mostly they are about finding and rating personal and businesses services, locating partners, whether for hook-ups or long-term, and other such weighty matters.
Additionally, other than the bio-X stuff, innovation is dominated by software.
But software, including the giants like Facebook and Google haven’t fundamentally changed things as much as is stated—and both could be easily replaced relative to something as basic to our modern civilization as silicon.
Is there anything happening that does have the potential to fundamentally change our world?
The American Chemical Society said in 2012 that graphene was discovered to be 200 times stronger than steel and so thin that a single ounce of it could cover 28 football fields. Chinese scientists have created a graphene aerogel, an ultralight material derived from a gel, that is one-seventh the weight of air. A cubic inch of the material could balance on one blade of grass.
Graphene is transparent, conductive, flexible and inexpensive.
The heavy lifting to develop graphene and uses for it is being done by old people in stogy, non-entrepreneurial companies, such as IBM, Nokia and SanDisk and especially Samsung along with a number of universities, with nary a twenty-something in sight.
Because the electronics industry so invested in silicon (software, including the cloud and apps run on hardware) it’s doubtful they will move quickly to embrace Graphene, in spite of its ability to truly revolutionize the entire industry.
Not so the Gates Foundation, which already paid to develop a graphene-based condom that is thin, light and impenetrable.
If your dream is to truly change the world, whether now or later, consider graphene.
Who knows, your idea could lead not just to a new company, but to an entirely new industry; not to employing a few thousand, but to jobs for millions.
Cut through all the noise about how fast the world is changing, how to stay competitive, constant learning, retraining, etc. and one message comes through loud and clear.
Whatever the entity or organization he/she/it needs to know how to transform in order to stay relevant.
In a world that constantly chatters about the importance of authenticity what’s a good recipe for staying authentic and enjoying a high level of creative freedom while making a giant difference by shaking up the establishment and still be able to pay the bills?
Ingredients
A group comedic actors, scriptwriters and directors in their 20s to late 30s
Add a wicked, satirical edge.
Mix well.
Post on your own YouTube channel.
Watch the money and changes roll in, although the money comes faster.
(Be sure to turn on Closed Captioning if you aren’t fully bilingual in Spanish.)
Any question why more than five million people have watched this?
As you might imagine, I do a lot of reading about innovation, new products and startups.
I have to say that too many are mind-numbingly boring and irrelevant when considered in the long-term—or even the shorter-term.
Whether it’s the (supposedly) hottest in Silicon Valley or Silicon Alley (AKA NYC) how many do you think will matter three or four years from now, let alone in a decade or more?
Many of them sport pedigrees from Tech Stars, Founders Fund, 500 Startups and Y Combinator, which only goes to show that, as with education, graduating from a top-ranked institution doesn’t assure meaningful success. (Be sure to read the comments and you’ll see my disdain is shared by many.)
Now compare them with the startups incubated, nurtured and seeded by Rock Health and Fledge.
Rock Health looks for“Big ideas executed by smart and driven entrepreneurs, to really move the needle in healthcare. Ideas should be addressing large problems in the system, with a business model that is sustainable and scalable.”
Fledge looks for“…companies looking to address the needs of increasingly health, environment and sustainability-conscious consumers in a variety of ways.”
Granted the ideas on Fledge are hyper-local and may not be world-changing at first glance, but if locally applicable iterations spread across the globe then world-changing they would be.
I’m also fully aware that many of the startups I shrug off will make money and be acquired, but it’s doubtful they will make history—even as a footnote.
If you plan/want to found a company why not look for a real need as opposed to a faux one and develop a product or service to address it; the same thing applies when choosing a place to work.
That’s how you change the world.
And just for fun take a look at products you couldn’t live without—from penicillin to Post-its to pacemakers—that all came about because of mistakes, accidents and carelessness that didn’t go unnoticed.
SUBMIT YOUR STORY Be the Thursday feature – Entrepreneurs: [your company name]
Share the story of your startup today.
Send it along with your contact information and I’ll be in touch.
Questions? Email or call me at 360.335.8054 Pacific time.
I find looking back at stats and happenings in a given year is always interesting. Not just for big happenings, but for an overview of that world. I had no real reason to choose 1953; it has no special significance to me, but here is a snapshot of the US in 1953.
The biggie was the end of the Korean War.
Ernest Hemmingway won the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
A guy named John married a gal named Jackie.
Living facts:
The average wage was $4000/year;
an average house cost $9500;
an average car cost $1600; and you could
fill it up for 20 cents a gallon.
But for all that I still wouldn’t want to go back to a 1953 world.
Galinsky says that if every person who wanted to change the world did so by starting a company there would be no one to work at or support those companies.
She argues that social entrepreneurship is just as much a way to live your life as to build a company.
I agree with everything she says except…
Galinsky constantly refers to young people just starting out and the need to encourage and support their efforts.
I think her message applies to people of all ages.
I do not believe that only the young can effect change.
In fact, change is driven faster when people of all ages embrace and actively encourage the change as opposed to dragging their feet or actively fighting a reactionary battle.
I really don’t believe that Mahatma Gandhi had a specific age in mind when he said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
You can be a social entrepreneur at any age, whether you do it by starting a company or living a socially responsible life, just do it.
SUBMIT YOUR STORY
Be the Thursday feature – Entrepreneurs: [your company name]
Share the story of your startup today.
Send it along with your contact information and I’ll be in touch.
Questions? Email or call me at 360.335.8054 Pacific time.
Have you ever wondered what people will make of the first Twitter messages in 30 years? Will there be another wave of technological change that makes that world radically different from today?
Long before Twitter and social media there was Usenet; a communal meeting place for scientists, developers, hackers and other early adopters.
Along with the more mundane Usenet was the place of firsts, including some of the most amazing technological announcements of the last 30 years.
For $ 1,565 you get a keyboard and logic unit with 16K RAM and a Basic interpreter in 40K ROM. A cassette interface is built in, I think; but no diskette or monitor at this price — you use your TV set. … A “business configuration” with 64K, dual diskettes, printer, and “color graphics” goes for about $ 4,500.
Among the many ‘firsts’ are some that boggle the mind.
In 1991 there were two that forever changed our world.
WorldWideWeb – Executive Summary: The WWW project merges the techniques of information retrieval and hypertext to make an easy but powerful global information system.
“I’m working on a free version of a minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers. It has finally reached the stage where it’s even usable (though may not be depending on what you want), and I am willing to put out the sources for wider distribution.”
I’m a renew (just fixed my office chair instead of replacing it), reuse (I love garage sales) and recycle (I save stuff that should be recyclable, but isn’t, until it is) nut and have driven a few friends nuts with my recycling “encouragement.”
So it’s no surprise that Tom Szaky, founder/CEO of TerraCycle is my hero and on several levels.
First, because where the rest of the planet saw garbage Tom saw potential profit.
Second, because he turned down a million dollar early stage investment, because it meant going against his/his company’s values.
Third, because his faith held and he didn’t take no for an answer.
Started in 2001, TerraCycle is the tortoise to the multiplicity of Net hares like Groupon, but in years to come it will be TerraCycle’s global reach that will truly change the world.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
Ever noticed that most discussion and commentary about entrepreneurs center on innovation and little-to-none of it will, in fact, change the world.
As you might imagine, I do a lot of reading about innovation, new products and startups.
I find looking back at stats and happenings in a given year is always interesting. Not just for big happenings, but for an overview of that world. I had no real reason to choose 1953; it has no special significance to me, but here is a snapshot of the US in 1953.
Writing as a guest at HBR Lara Galinsky, senior vice president of 
Have you ever wondered what people will make of the first Twitter messages in 30 years? Will there be another wave of technological change that makes that world radically different from today?
