True Business- real life for small businesses

This week, one of my more amusing reads has been “Complete and utter Zebu” by Simon Rose and Steve Caplin (to find out what Zebu is, you’ll have to buy the book). It’s a catalogue of the sometimes scary lies told by businesses, politicians and publicity gurus to part us from our money, our morals, or our votes. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable read.

It seems odd for me to pull a business lesson out of a book which spends much of its time holding a sceptical eye up to some of big business’ more dubious tactics; but towards the end of the book I found a delightful chapter devoted to quotes from some of history’s most influential businesspeople and inventors- getting things wrong. And because they’re quotes, I can repeat some of them here for you.

“The Phonograph has no commercial value” - Thomas Edison

“This ‘Telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us”- Western Union Memo

“That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced”- Scientific American, 1909

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”- Harry Warner, head of Warner Brothers, 1927

“Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”- Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, 1946

“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.”- Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment, 1977

So – you can rightly giggle to yourself at these pontificating pronouncements from the great and the good. Edison, of course, is forgivable for many of these comments – he successfully patented a raft of inventions; and watched several more reach a mass audience with somebody else long after he had discarded them.

Several more of these comments, though (particularly Warner and 20th Century Fox) are paradigm examples of big companies sticking their heads in the sand when a new, threatening technology comes along; hoping the danger will go away.

The quote from Scientific American about cars is also by no means alone – in the 1800s, the British Society, then the world’s foremost platform for scientific discourse, almost closed its doors, claiming that “everything there to be discovered has been discovered”.

What makes these comments so interesting is that we’re all experts when we’re armed with hindsight. In the fray of business, these big players are at an inherent disadvantage. They move slowly and ponderously. It’s small, agile companies which create game-changing new business models. Some smarter large businesses see this, and create innovation labs to check out new ideas. They fund offshoots without the burden of the big corporate architecture, to accelerate new ideas to fruition.

Fashion brands even employ young style consultants who are so close to emerging trends that they can spot next year’s playground uber-trend while it’s still incubating in just one urban club.

But if you’re looking for the Next Big Thing, you can do no better than to ask yourself, all the time, “Why does it have to be this way?” By thinking differently, by challenging received wisdom, by questioning the assumed and obvious; that’s where so many innovative new ideas and their subsequent businesses can be allowed to emerge. And that thinking needs no money: just an open mind.