Finding Problems Sparks Innovation

Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera, had the ability to discover a problem others would not be able to come up with. In our Simplexity process this is called problem finding. Most people are able to come up with solutions when someone else provides them with the problem, fewer can discover important problems to be solved. We call this generating. Land was very much a generator. Some years ago, a Life Magazine cover story elaborated on his process. 

Land was walking along the beach with his four-year-old daughter and had one more picture left on his film. He told her to stand in front of the ocean and snapped her picture, then said, “Let’s run down to the drugstore, and we can get your picture back in about a week.” Being just a kid, she asked, “Why do I have to wait a week to see my picture?” Among the challenges for him could have been, getting her to understand why it takes a week or teaching her to be more patienct, etcetera. Instead, her simple question sparked a challenge that had never occurred to him: To create a camera that yields instantaneous pictures. Within a couple of hours, he thought of two ideas which might help solve the problem. About four years later, you could buy a commercialized product that changed our lives, the Polaroid camera.