Aphorisms for Wisdom

As I pick back up my series of articles, I thought it would be fun to try something different.?Those who have worked for me or been to one of my lectures, presentations, webinars, seminars, etc. know I always end each one with the same aphorisms. Pre-covid there were three. Covid taught me I needed a fourth. The amazing thing about these four aphorisms is that they provide wisdom for just about everything we do in in the curious mix of innovation, IP management, knowledge/technology transfer, commercialization, new product development, program development and management, legislation and regulation, entrepreneurship, business development, organizational development, and economic development where I have built my career. ?You just have to ponder a bit on how to apply them and in the contemplation of them, as an Asian monk might say, is wisdom.

Here are the aphorisms.

???????Nothing happens without a sale.

David Speser

???????A well-defined imagination is the source of great deeds.

Chinese Fortune Cookie

???????If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.

Milton Berle

???????It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how.

The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Suess

In this post I will briefly demonstrate how they apply in a variety of contexts. In the next four posts, we will look at each aphorism in more depth in order to understand why they can provide us wisdom.

Let us begin "Grasshopper" ...

Nothing happens without a sale.

Innovation: To be an innovation, a new method, idea, product, or service must be useful. But what does it mean to say it is useful if no-one is willing to spend (or trade) anything to either buy or adopt it.?If it cannot be “sold”, what does it mean to assert it is useful. So, the aphorism reminds us to question who is the “buyer”; who cares enough to adopt this thing. If no-one does, it may be novel, but it is not an innovation.

IP Management: IP is simple an intellect6ual asset with a no trespassing sign on it. The value of a piece of IP, as with any other asset, is in its potential to be used to make money. The aphorism reminds us if an intellectual asset cannot be used in connection with selling something (as a method or all or part of a product or service), the asset cannot have value.

New Product Development: NPD is not about ideas. It’s about developing a product or service that can be sold to a specific customer segment in specific markets. The aphorism reminds us that all NPD projects begin with the identification of who is the customer and why they will pay for this product or service if we develop it.

Let’s look at a few more examples.

A well-defined imagination is the source of great deeds.

Entrepreneurship: For a start-up to succeed, a researcher turned entrepreneur must learn several disciplines. These include things like bookkeeping and the importance of positive cash flow; human resource management and how to hire, organize, task, monitor, and motivate her or his staff; marketing and sales and how to how to how to find and customers who want to buy what you are offering, take their money, and deliver the goods to them, and so forth. None of the skills required to do these are taught in science and engineering programs. The aphorism reminds us that the researcher turned entrepreneur must find a way to learn the skills needed to run a business, or better yet, bring good people onto the start-up team who are already accomplished.

If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.

Knowledge/Technology Transfer: Unless you at are a Stanford,. MIT, Oxford, Cambridge, National University of Singapore or the like, companies seeking technology do not come knocking on your door. Rather than bemoaning the fact, first make it easy for them to understand what your organization has to offer, find out more detail about the things they are interested in, and do deals with you. The aphorism reminds us that only when these “doors” are ready, are you prepared to figure out who is likely to be interested in what you have to offer and go knock of their door.

It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how.

Economic Development: Economic development, to be successful, requires people to change their behavior. In general, there are only two reasons someone will do that. It is in their interest, as they understand what their interest is, to do so or it is fun, however they define fun. The best initiatives use both levers. But to do so, you have to understand how the people whose behavior you want to change understand their interests and what is fun for them. In other words, while the objectives or goal state are defined by the mission of an initiative, the methods used and how you communicate must be user centric. The aphorism reminds us to never forget, you are trying to get people to change, to move outside their comfort zone. At the same time it reminds us that is we are not having fun, the frustrations of the work will demotivate us and we will act like, and become, useless bureaucrats. For you to have fun in the work, you must find how to make it fun for others so they will play with you.

Go back and read the aphorisms. Think of a challenge you are facing. Contemplate them to get unstuck.