Events
 

Some of the things you’ll discover

1. What do the Telephone, The Beatles, and talking movies have in common?

They were all initially rejected.

2. Why do so many people falsely think they are not creative?

Their ideas got rejected.

3. What can we learn from the inventor of US patent 3,771,192: a combined toy dog and vacuum cleaner?

Make sure you’re not inventing something that only you need.

4. What is the first stage of resistance?

Blindness. People ignore things that don’t fit. Kodak ignored the transition from film to digital photography until nearly too late. “Looked But Failed to See” is the 3rd most common cause of traffic accidents.

5. How did AIDs activists change the way new drugs were tested so quickly?

By talking to the scientists in their own language, while putting on dramatic demonstrations to drive home the urgency. One outside Harvard Medical School involved false blood, handcuffs and fake corpses.

6. What did the Japanese firm Toray do to overcome the aviation industry’s resistance to using carbon fibre?

They used it in high performance golf clubs.

7. What can we learn from the success of the London Congestion Charge?

Not to get demoralised by resistance: your supporters will often be quieter than your opponents.

8. What did General George Marshall do to help his idea get adopted (for US aid to Western Europe after World War II)

He refused to call it the Marshall Plan.

Read more about these in the book

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