Short Stories and Scenarios for Innovation

Film K

This involves the widely reported incident involving a company that we will call "Film K". They were a leading provider of film for cameras [yes kids: cameras used to have film inside that you had to take to a shop to be developed over hours or days]. Reports say that Film K came up with the idea for the digital camera but they did nothing with it.

Typically, many companies have members of staff that come up with good ideas, but their managers block the idea. Often this is because management do not think the idea is a good one. This might have been a factor in the decision by Film K. Interestingly, another reason reported is that they were worried it would disrupt their film based business model. So they hid the idea and [presumably] hoped it would go away.

Ironically, as we now know digital cameras did disrupt the film based industry, and Film K was severely disrupted [and driven towards bankruptcy].

A massive site owned by the company closed down. Today that site is a relatively new business park.

The name lives on today, in the digital age, but its legacy represents a powerful story in the era of rapid innovation.

Lessons to learn

What can we learn?

» New ideas can provide critical opportunities for survival.

» Ignore good ideas at your peril.

» [On the other hand, be aware that not all ideas are good ideas. So adopt a robust ideas evaluation process: see Level 2 in The Innovative Innovation Book.]