Financial Times

Necessity, mother of invention
By Nilooka Dissanayake
Recently a friend of mine told me that he was in a soup! "What can I do, tell me?" he asked. And it seemed that the soup was getting heated by the minute; and my friend, more and more uncomfortable.

What could he do? I told him there were many options: Let the soup come to boil and spill over in its own time. Let it burn. Increase the heat so it boils over faster. Reduce or put out the fire. Get out of it. Drink the soup. Throw it out. Let it be and ignore it. There could be many other things he could do besides if only he took the time to think.

I am sure my friend was annoyed at my seemingly insensitive and superficial answer. But he was looking at the issue he faced from purely a conventional angle. What I wanted to do, as I did with the soup analogy was to open his eyes and discover that there could be more than one way to skin a cat. To use another well-worn cliché, what my friend needed was to think out of the box, to seek creative solutions.

Often new ideas are born out of sheer necessity; and in some cases, perversity. Let us consider some examples:

Almost 90 years ago, a New York debutante, Mary Phelps Jacob, getting ready for a dance found that her heavy whale bone corset was sticking out ungainly underneath her sheer gown and it was uncomfortable. So, she connected two handkerchiefs with a pink ribbon and wrapped it around her bust and went corsetless to the dance. Many of her friends wanted this same attire. In 1914, under a pseudonym she patented her "backless brassiere" and the bra was born.

In 1948, a New York homemaker "cut up her shower curtain and made a waterproof diaper with an absorbent lining" according to "Great Inventions" published by the TIME magazine. She was trying to sort out a daily and pressing problem every mother understands. She sold rights to it in 1951 for $1 million! Proctor & Gamble introduced disposable diapers 10 years later.

You see what I mean? "Great Inventions" by TIME is chock-a-block with such great but simple ideas that have made human life easy, convenient and livable. They have also turned into great business ideas.

So, if you want to find ideas, one good place to look is right under your nose. Look around you, at home and homes of your family and friends. Think of what you wish were better in your life and see if that can bring about the birth of a new idea. It is seeking to improve something, to make life better that has given life to most great ideas. Then you can also look away. Look for instance at trends taking place in the world and in Sri Lanka. People are getting older (as populations) and they are living longer.

Their children are going abroad or traveling away from home to build their own nests. Concept of extended families is dying a natural death. They need home care, medical attention, companionship, insurance and many other services. Just a glance at the newspapers or television to see how many insurance products are being promoted for the over 55s and you will see what I mean. Such trends open up vast opportunities, if only we know where to look.

Life is also changing because people are busy. They need products to suit their busy lifestyles. An example for such a product is coconut milk powder. The Coconut Research Institute (CRI) has also developed a technology to produce coconut cream. According to Dr. D.B.T. Wijeratne, Chairman CRI, this product, when manufactured on a commercial scale is actually saleable at a cost cheaper than coconut because there is no wastage during the production process. It does not need to be refrigerated, making it accessible to every housewife.

This is a creative solution that solves a number of problems. It improves our productivity in that we will use less coconut to cook the same number of meals. According to Wijeratne, when using coconut in the conventional manner, we generally throw away 40-60 percent of the usable content. Using the cream will also increase the fibre content in our diet.

The convenience factor should be obvious. On average, every Sri Lankan consumes 108 coconuts every year and Sri Lanka consumes most of her coconut produce. Hence this saving through increasing the yield by 50% substantially increases volume available for export.

Can we seek such creative solutions to our day- to-day problems?
Technology too can change our lives. Many new ideas are born out of changing technologies. Developing bio interactive materials will create computers you can wear through merging of cognitive computing, smart materials and genomics. fossil fuels will go vegan when technologies replace oil with fuels from genetically engineered crops.

You will be able to upgrade to a better body when bionics will replace lost or damaged body parts. As you can see, changing, adapting, merging, replacing and tweaking the current ideas in some way or other can give rise to new products and ideas.

And why am I discussing all this here? If you are looking for business ideas, try moving away from the obvious and look in places where you never thought of before for new and creative solutions.

The writer is the Managing Editor of Athwela Vyaparika Sangarawa (Athwela Business Journal), the only Sinhala management monthly targeting the small and medium enterprises, the Ezine Athwela Email Magazine and www.smallbusiness.lk, the bilingual small
business website.

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