The History of Ideas

July 15th, 2010
by Morris Beton

Don’t get the idea that I know anything about the history of ideas. Arthur Lovejoy founded this field of study and I know nothing about it. I do know my rendition of the history of ideas, and my rendition tells me that most ideas are bad.

This doesn’t just apply to software companies. Across the board there are bad ideas. It’s particularly prevalent amongst “smart” people. I know this first hand because I’m generally thought of as “smart” and I have a lot of bad ideas – it’s like there’s no end to them.

The smarter the people, the more bad ideas. Look at Microsoft’s Ballmer – he’s a damn genius who comes up with tons of bad ideas on a regular basis. The poor guy can’t even say a word in a meeting without having some dolt actually think what he’s saying is brilliant and executing on it before he even knows what’s happening.

This is a lesson I learned very early on in my career when I first became a manager at IBM. I saw this picture of a bunch of gears, progressively ranging from very large to very small. The big gear takes a barely noticeable, tiny turn at the top, and at the other end the smallest gear is spinning like crazy.

gears The History of Ideas

This is what it’s like at large companies: the big guy comes up with some bad idea and every Dilbert in the room takes it as gospel and does it.

Some advice: just because the exec has an idea, don’t assume it’s a good one – the likelihood is that it’s bad. Most ideas are bad, and even fewer are commercially viable, so just because someone in authority or with great credentials comes up with some invention or great idea or some excellent way of doing or creating something, don’t just assume it will fly. It probably won’t.

Let’s look at examples. Microsoft has over 40,000 SKUs and some 3,000 products. How many do you think make money? I’m sure we could count them on one hand. On April 12, 2010 Microsoft announced KIN, a Windows phone targeting a youthful market – the social generation.  Less than two months after the product launch, Microsoft killed it.

IBM has twice as many SKUs as Microsoft. How many do you think make money? Did you know that the IBM tape drive business headed up by Ambuj Goyal is huge? It’s bigger than most software and computer hardware companies in existence today. What the hell did this guy do to deserve a great job like this? Did you even know that people still use tape drives? I’ll tell you right now that Google would be hard pressed to find a tape drive source today. However, if you go to the IBM site and look under products you’ll see tape drives prominently displayed under “Tape Systems”. Imagine that – a multi-billion dollar business centered around a product that in today’s terms would be called a really bad idea.

Don’t be fooled. Most ideas are bad, but some really bad ideas are very good.

I hope to blog again.

NOTE:  These facts are intentionally obfuscated to preserve the spirit of this topic.

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One Response to “The History of Ideas”

  1. It May Be a Good Idea | In the Limelight: Daryl Orts – Thoughts on Management and Business Intelligence, with Personal Insights Says:
    August 4th, 2010 at 5:21 pm

    [...] do have to add a caveat to this theme – a thought that was clearly (and humorously) detailed in Morris Beton’s blog a few weeks ago.  His point is clear: “Most ideas are bad.”   He elaborates with: “Even [...]