Yesterday, I wrote about reality that used to be a dream. Today I had a chance to watch an interesting TV show, Inventions that Shock the World by Discovery Channel. One of the stories was camera phone; it was not someone’s dream but an engineer’s urgent matter. His wife was giving birth, and he wanted to send photos of his wife and their baby to his family and friends immediately. He had a laptop computer (which was as big as today’s slim desktop computer), a digital camera, and a cell phone (which was as big as conventional telephone receiver), but did not have internet access. He decided to connect the devices. While his wife was in the labor room, he was in the waiting room and created a mechanism to send photos from his cell phone.
Peter Drucker describes the practice of innovation; innovation is not all about inspiration but there are the principles of successful innovation. The camera phone story tells that, besides the systematic practice of innovation, people need skills and the ability to take action in order to make an idea reality. I think there are two types of dreamers; those who dream about something and talk about it, and those who dream about something and take action on it. Which one do I want to be?