Saturday, February 18, 2006

Inherently of No Value?

After my blog yesterday on the last telegram a friend sent me an email reminding me that Western Union, the owner of the telegram, was given the first opportunity to commercialize the telephone. Here was their evaluation of the technology from a company internal memo.

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”

How often have you seen “the experts” get it completely wrong? I’ve seen it over and over.

My favorite example is Leavenworth, WA which reinvented itself as a Bavarian Village, even though the expert they brought in from the University of Washington to advise them thought that they were all crazy at the time. If you have a vision of where you want to go combined with a passion to get it done, watch out!!!

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