In the unlikely event ...

I just finished reading the book In The Unlikely Event by Judy Blume. This is one of her books written for the kids that are now a lot older. I started reading the book with the idea this book was about the tragedies and how they got through it. However after reading the full book, I realized it was about the fact that it is the Unlikely events in our lives that lead us to greatness. This quote stands out in my mind

Lily looks out the window, then back at her. "My Dad says unlikely events aren't all bad. There are good ones, too." "Like meeting you on the plane", Miri says, making Lily smile.

When I look back on my life and career it is the unlikely events that has led to great successes. People have often commented that I am in tune with the unlikely and when there is a tough problem to solve, I will say, "hey the solution is over here" but people will say no that is highly unlikely. After troubleshooting for a while and have exhausted all the likely reasons they try my unlikely idea and solves it. But rather than focus on me though I would rather focus on me let's look at a couple of other examples.

LinkedIn

Now everyone sees the success of LinkedIn but do you know a lot about why LinkedIn was so successful at the start? If they launched today would they be as successful? I would argue probably not. Don't get me wrong it was a great idea and often I am not sure what I would do without it but the start of LinkedIn came from Techies. By nature Techies do not generally network, they love to work alone, they have their close group of friends but not a huge network. The unlikely event in this case was the Dot Com Crash. People predicted it yes but they had been predicting it for a long time. Fortunately for LinkedIn, their launch coincided with the crash. Lots of out of work techies, talented ones. They needed to find work. They had always been told. Network, network, network but face to face groups made them uncomfortable. Forced to do the unlikely forced them onto social media in the form of LinkedIn and the related Yahoo Groups. This built up a good base of techies. As things came back around, recruiters that realized the potential joined and funded LinkedIn's success through premium memberships but it was the unlikely event of the .COM Crash that was the key.

The Former IBM Company

There is this company in Waterloo that has an interesting history. I will not say the name here but will say the name sounds like a pop company. It started out as an IBM project based on tracking organic food from farm to plate. The project was making good progress but the organic market was only a small market and IBM decided to cancel the project. The project leaders saw potential here and worked out something with IBM to go it alone. Then an unlikely event happened: September 11. The fallout of this unlikely event brought into the forefront the possibility of an attack on the food supply. Imagine someone putting something in a batch of food or drink that is in high usage. If a recall needed to be done on a batch but not the entire product then tracking needed to be done. Having the organic food tracking logic down, this provided an opportunity and this company thrived because of this unlikely event.

Your Entrepreneurial Project

Your question is how does this effect me? Well, a lot of times we think of crazy ideas. Ones that are really out there. Ones that cover a scenario that is unlikely and not highly profitable now but is profitable. It is a running joke among my friends and colleagues about the Crazy Idea of the Month. Don't throw out your idea, keep it on the back burner, take a look at it, keep pushing it forward. If it generates some profit use that to keep it going, you never know when the unlikely event will happen and it would be a shame if you miss that unlikely event.

What are your crazy ideas? If you need someone to bounce your crazy idea off of, I am here to listen. Who knows, I may know someone else with a similar idea or something along the same lines. Your crazy idea could become the next big thing.

An Unlikely Event in Canada

Are you in Canada and are you a coder or designer? Then an unlikely event just occurred today. Ontario Launches Code For Canada organization to help improve services. What does this mean? If you had an idea, a crazy idea that you thought was simple or not very profitable but useful, now you can approach Code For Canada and it could become profitable not just in revenue but in a reference. It is very difficult to get your products or services used by the government. As a contractor in tech, you know the difficulties. Well now you have an unlikely event to help you get introduced. Make a real difference, get a foot in the door.