“I don’t handle criticism well and could possibly get violent if provoked.” And so began the pitch that he had begged for us to hear for weeks. The speaker got a thumbs up on perseverance. After multiple phone calls I finally relented and said, yes, you are more than welcome to come in to talk about your technology innovation. Maybe we can help you. Maybe? We had no idea what we were in for until the pitch started with that quote above (this is true!).
I should have had an inkling of what was ahead when I was asked if we could make an opaque projector available – not an LCD projector or a standard A/V connection mind you – an opaque projector. For those of you under the age of 60 or 70, an opaque projector was a somewhat popular thing 50+ years ago. It was mostly used in schools to project hard copy items up onto a screen. I guessed correctly that we weren’t about to see another PowerPoint presentation! But, ironically enough, after a bit of a search we found an opaque projector.
So, after that intro and for the next half hour in a large conference room (with plenty of space between the presenter and us – in case we needed to quickly exit the room) we watched page after page of scrawled handwritten notes describing the thought process of someone who believed they had a marketable innovation. No path to get there…just an idea. Now, honestly, I can’t recall exactly what the idea was – it could have been the space bus idea (think – public trips to the moon), it could have been the idea having to do the founder’s connection to the Queen (think – royal innovation), it may even have been the “do something with all this corn” idea (think – no don’t think!). It didn’t matter then, and it doesn’t matter now – the presenter had our rapt attention with the “…could possibly get violent if provoked…” introduction and we didn’t hear much of anything else after that! How can you critique – let alone criticize – any idea after that?
What did I get out of it? For starters, I began to seriously my commitment to give anyone who asked thirty minutes of my time.
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