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An informal, stream-of-consciousness reflection on business ideas, events and issues in modern business, modern life and with some specifics to the web-software industry by Paul Tomori, Internet Entrepreneur

A Failure of Imagination By Paul Tomori Friday, August 21, 2009 at 10:13:17 (EDT) "Imagination is more important than knowledge. - Albert Einstein" As I bring to a close my 10-day summer respite away from 95% of the demands of my worklife, I have come to some notable conclusions during my short sweet 10 day hiatus. Of these, the most important is that almost all problems can be solved if one can only tap their innate, yet often smothered, powers of imagination. The business challenges that we face will persist and stifle us unless we can imagine an alternate view or two or three or four hundred. Einstein said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." I recall a former work colleague whose powers of knowledge were vast, but whose imagination as to how to apply those powers was stunted. I reflect on how my own shortcomings of knowledge have invariably been buffeted by stretches of imagination that led me in new and exciting directions. My successes are qualified by their debt to my active imagination. And still, my successes thus far may only be a small ripple in the big pool. Wouldn't it be fun and potentially prosperous to make a bigger splash? Reviewing a recent blog post where I outlined a very specific failure of imagination during a programming task, I reiterate that that failure to conceptualize a better way of achieving my program objective led me on a 12 hour odyssey of wasted coding time. In a flash of insight, (once I was well-rested and capable of imagination again), the more elegant solution just popped into my head and I coded it up in a fraction of the time that I had previously squandered. It took me 2 hours to do properly and more successfully than the mess I had worked on for 12 hours. Translate that to years. What if you did the right things for 2 years instead of the wrong things for 12 years? What a difference the outcome of your life would be! Here's to successes of imagination. Return To Blog Index