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We all love the blockbuster idea, at least after it has
proven itself. How many of us dismissed as impractical
the concept of overnight shipment by transporting packages
to a central point. Or thought the hit network TV program
Alf, was doomed to fail (I saw a pilot and declined to
advertise on it)?
While the big idea is cool, there is genius in smaller
creative ideas too. I remember a quotation by Jan Carlson,
then president of SAS airlines who said, "We cannot
be 100% better than our competitors in any one thing,
but we can be 1% better in a hundred things." This
is the Kazian spirit...small continuous improvement.
To pursue that idea, I'd like to offer a few things I've
seen that fall into the small improvement category. In
themselves, they are not earth shattering, but taken together
they have a cumulative effect.
One of my pet peeves in public washrooms is the mess
that excess water leaves on a countertop. The puddles
look unsanitary and have an uncanny attraction for my
tie as I lean over to wash my hands. In a hotel where
I was presenting a program, I noticed there was a soap
dish under each soap dispenser. This was a low-tech stroke
of genius to significantly reduce the problem of dripping
hands under the soap dispenser.
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At a Perkin's restaurant in Milwaukee, I spotted a
plastic spoon duct-tapped to the counter pen used by
customers to sign their bills. I was out the door when
it struck me that I needed to find out why. I turned
around, went back into the restaurant and asked about
the spoon. The waitress said that they were losing several
pens a day, as customers would inadvertently pocket
it after they signed their credit card slip. Someone
came up with the idea of taping the spoon on the pen.
Since then, they had not lost a single pen.
SouthWest Airline for as long as I can
remember, has reused boarding passes. Over the years
this has saved millions if not tens of millions dollars.
(Yes, now for security reasons they have to print boarding
passes).
I challenge you to help me write a future article.
I know there are millions of these small improvements
and I want you to help discover them. Send me your observations
and I will pull them together in a future article. I
will also give you full credit for being a creativity
spotter.
Better yet, why not share some ideas that you have
for making the world a little better. I'll publish these
too and give you credit for them.
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