The Elephant Idea: Missed or Overlooked Ideas of the Obvious

Now the advent of the digital camera makes taking numerous images no issue. Undesirable images can be deleted, keeping the ones you like with no film wasted. However, someone who has done this before also knows you may must take the picture lots of times to get it "just right".

Every time I visited my friends or relatives members who had 12-18 year olds (pre teenagers and teenagers) in the house, they were always taking pics of themselves to post on they are social networking sites.

So, when I saw this process-taking place I would often laugh. I don't ever keep in mind when I was a teen; one) having the prepared availability of cameras (they were usually "adult" things that took some knowledge on how to operate and special film etc.), two) when they did have cameras they were taking pics of our friends or having others take pics of us. In other words, being used in a actual life social setting and two) cameras were costly and would not normally have over in the house shortage.

On witnessing teen-aged people taking pics of themselves I also created some fascinating social observations that I thought were kind of ironic. The whole idea of "social networking" and getting tons of friends resulted in more people taking pics of themselves vs. having more friends to take pics of them. This giant world of "virtual friends" did not exist in the actual world so they were making a whole "realm of thought / consciousness" that basically did not exist when I was their age. They did not use cameras the way they do nor did they communicate with others in the way teenagers do now. They also did not have access to the know-how that exists today.

Nobody, not us adults, nor the kids using cameras, nor the parents who design cameras ever thought of the simplest manipulation to the camera to make taking self-portraits simpler, a tiny screen on the FRONT of the camera that allowed the person taking the self-photos to see what they were taking a picture of, until Samsung came out with the Dual view digital camera.

So, was my mind programmed for the thoughts I had? Yes. Was my mind able to generating prejudices about how cameras ought to be used? Yes. Was my lack of experience with social networks of the age making me not understand the necessity to take self-pictures? Yes. So what was the idea that was missing in this situation?

This representation of how a manipulation of a product meets a necessity that develops with people's changing behavior, use of the know-how or a combination of other factors can be applied to actual life and the approach to solving "problems" that are employed by inventors and entrepreneurs.

Now in the grand technique of things, this small invention may not rock the world so to speak. But this is an excellent way of explaining how all of us think the world is what "we see", not necessarily what "could be". So the small digital display on the front of the camera was the "Elephant Idea", the idea that ought to have been obvious to all of us but basically was not.

In life, human beings are all well taught the rules, boundaries and limitations of what they can or cannot do in lieu of teaching which focuses on the limitless possibilities that exist in the world. It is often those "ah ha" moments in life that are the root of what drives an entrepreneurial spirit in individuals who figure out something they can do that changes or improves on ones experience. They capitalize on their newfound idea and fundamentally write their own rules from there on out. They generate businesses, growing their ideas and employ folks to help them in their mission.

When my fella and I wrote our first book together "Double Click on This, Preschoolers and Computers" they learned valuable lesson about teaching preschool children- the technique of learning is not as natural and straightforward as lots of think. In order to effectively teach, the learning technique must first be "taught" or lets say encouraged and guided in kids. This "learning process" is crucial as it permits individuals to absorb information freely, internalize it and add it to their growing basket of knowledge.

Their ideas are often derived from situations they might even see as boundaries, obstacles, or limits in life or they generate a new product or solution where they did not even see as feasible, hence the term "Elephant Idea". These Elephant Ideas come from those of us who understand learning is a life long journey and the simpler they find it to learn anew, setting aside our pre-learned prejudices, the more they can go about exploring the world anew every day and find those "Elephant Ideas" that drive the next generation of entrepreneurs of our time.