Words from Ron Hollis

While I am not a huge Thomas Friedman fan, in his book, The World is Flat, he did expose for public discussion the changes that have occurred in our world.   With the advent of instant communication, the world is much smaller and much flatter than any time in history.

I recently ran across the following quote or statement from Friedman that is appropriate to our time.

Friedman stated, “There are still two really important things that can’t be commoditized.  Fortunately, America still has one of them: imagination.  What your citizens imagine now matters more than ever because they can act on their own imaginations farther, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever before- as individuals.  In such a world, societies that can nurture people with the ability to imagine and spin off new ideas will thrive.”

Being in the product development world for my entire career, I can appreciate his point more than most and confirm that he has this absolutely right!  Over the past 20 years, we have seen a complete transformation of the product development world that allows ideas to be created in hours instead of weeks.   At the end of the day, it comes down to the tools available to empower one to release his imagination and convert the imaginary into the reality.  There are 3 major tools that have evolved to make it easy for anyone to empower their imagination for the creation of something new.

1) CAD.  Some of the most powerful tools that have freed the imagination of man is CAD (Computer-Aided Design).  This is the canvas of creation. This is tool that allows a person to translate their thoughts and ideas into a representation of reality. Some 20 years ago, CAD was still an electronic version of paper and all ideas were broken into an archaic and difficult language of engineering drawings and 2-dimensional representations. Today, a guy in his underwear watching a ball game can load Google Sketch-up and design his idea in a 3-dimensional language that represents reality. If he designs a new, fancy cup to drink his coffee, then it will actually look like a cup, not a bunch lines to represent a cup.  These new CAD products are much easier to use, affordable, and very powerful.

2) Rapid Prototyping. Now you have a cool design that represents your imagination, what’s next? Again, some 20 years ago you were stuck. The option was to go to a model maker that would cost thousands and take weeks to turn your design into a prototype.  This is definitely not a way to free the masses to imagine and create, but to stifle creativity and leave it to the companies that have figured out how to make money with their product. Today, with the evolution of rapid prototyping, the world of design to reality is AMAZING! A design can be transformed from the electronic representation of a design to reality in a few hours for very little money.  This allows virtual products to be evaluated under the circumstances of physics, reality and usability. This allows the design to evolve very rapidly from an unproven concept to a real, functional and worthwhile product.  A designer can finish his cup design this afternoon, login to Quickparts.com to order his prototype and have it delivered tomorrow morning. From imagination to design to reality in day!

3) Low Cost Manufacturing.  Many times the purpose of imagination and development is to solve a problem of the world. In the case where the problem only exists for the one person that designs the solution, then a prototype may suffice. However, odds are high that a problem for one is a problem for many. So, there is a market of your design. Again, 20 years ago it would be very difficult to have your design manufactured cost effectively. You would have to invest huge dollars to get started. Today, the world is great. With the evolution of manufacturing technologies and the mass expansion of manufacturing capacity with countries like China being an email away, then a product can be setup and manufactured very cost-effectively.

By combining the independent power of these 3 tools, the world of imagination, innovation, problem solving, product development and creation are highly accessible to those in the US. We have been blessed to have access to such powerful resources as developers of tomorrow and consumers today. It is with these tools that the US can maintain our world-leader status as the innovators of the world as long as we are willing to accept the challenge of creation and not try to offshore it as well.

Imagination is the seed of creation.  Creation is as God-like as you can get.