Thinking Outside the Box

This week, it has been reported that in 1900, an American civil engineer called John Elfreth Watkins made a number of predictions about what the world would be like in 2000. Maybe no big news, except for the fact that the majority of his predictions came true.

Over 100 years ago, John Elfreth Watkins wrote a feature for Ladies’ Home Journal, entitled What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years. The article said: “These prophecies will seem strange, almost impossible”.  And no doubt, at the time, they did.  He accurately predicted digital colour photography, mobile phones and television – all central to our world today.

Take Watkins prediction of mobile phones – this prediction came 15 years before Alexander Bell made the first call, so to predict mobile telephones was truly revolutionary.  It is this sort of revolutionary thinking which makes great people, well – great.  Okay, so Watkins himself didn’t invent the mobile phone, but he had enough foresight and vision to see further than what was right in front of him.

We need only look at Steve Jobs to see what thinking outside of the box can achieve for businesses.  He revolutionised the way we live our lives on a daily basis, simply by looking beyond the black and white.  It’s important for a business to employ hard working, motivated people, but it’s only when those people start to see the bigger picture and think creatively that truly great successes happen.

John Elfreth Watkins was ahead of his time in the way that he thought.  So was Steve Jobs.  The World Future Society says it best: “We invent the future through our actions and change it constantly”.  Nothing is set in stone and with the right people thinking inspired and inventive thoughts, a business’s success will see no bounds.