This article in Business Week caught my attention which said:
Being too close to—or distant from—a situation can thwart innovation.
...You walk into a meeting with a great idea. You're full of anticipation for the excitement it's going to cause, only to be met by the comment: "That's just like 'X'—it's been done before." The idea is dismissed and you leave, perplexed and deflated.
Sound familiar? Especially to those presenting to senior management or to a Venture Capital firm. Because you are very familiar with a particular market, you see things most people don't.
But how to get them to understand? I like to accent the key "aha" factor by building a prototype. The best is one that actually works in some manner. For instance when my team came up with the "appliance" computing concept in the early 90's, we actually built a working computer on a piece of plywood. We got the funding. If you cannot do that, then at least build slideware. Maybe, just maybe they'll get it.
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