An Apple On The Head

APR 24, 2013

  20 years ago, nobody could have invented YouTube. Nobody would have even thought about it. Too many things had not been invented yet. There are some inventions that require other things to be invented before anyone even imagines them. Nobody could have imagined an xbox 100 years ago. It is my opinion, that such things are not really invented, they are discovered. Various things keep getting invented, and then one day someone will sit down and look at two things and say – hey, if I combined these two things, and did this other thing to them, it would be pretty cool. For that to happen though, you have to have had a lot of knowledge – a lot of in-depth study about a particular topic. A lot of folks got hit on the head by Apples. It’s when it hit Newton’s head that it formed a realization. He was already thinking about those things. In a period of rapid invention, like we are living in right now, there is constant opportunity for two ideas to merge and form something that changes the world. The folk who are thinking about these topics will see the opportunity and they will create new things. In some ways, it’s dangerous to be too good at what you do. Then you know how it works. And when you know, you stop thinking about it. And when you stop thinking about, you stop seeing the possibilities that could exist. You’d get hit by an Apple on the head, and have nothing for it but a painful and slight swelling.  By Mark Essien