Innovation’s Big Dilemma: The Pink House

An intellectual average never captures the big idea.

One person wants a white house. The other wants a red house.

And unfortunately, in today’s world, the solution is often the horror of compromise. The pink house!

The individual ideas might be great. But this silly notion of consensus can get in the way. Often times, the bigger the group, the more messy the solution becomes. This may be marketing greatest struggle — the failure to sustain a winning idea. We see it all the time. The failure to choose becomes the compromise of appeasement! Even American politics and energy policy is doomed, when response to a question about how to manage this country’s energy concerns is the mindless retort “all of the above”.

An intellectual average is never the solution to a problem!

The trick is to move the “consensus” in the direction of innovation and reestablish the new “center.” It’s not easy. And powerful forces will defend their comfortable turf. Innovation can be a lonely voice — an exciting whisper. But pomposity yells louder.

So never settle for the “pink house” type of appeasement.

No one will ever come over for dinner!