HOW MUCH DOES THAT WEIGH?
Saturday, April 9, 2022
While judging Calgary’s BOMA Building of the Year Awards a few years ago, one of our colleagues asked, with the most serious face, a question of the presenters: “How much does this building weigh?”
Our group of judges kept straight faces – we were accustomed to Neil’s perverse questions – before we all burst into laughter. Seriously, how much things weight cannot be measured when it comes to significant, large and weighty things?
What does a building weigh?
What does a mountain weigh?
Or, how heavy is your burden?
Things we carry on our shoulders – what is the weight of that, how much does pain weigh, how heavy is that heavy burden, or how light are we when we are light on our feet?
And how do you measure an opportunity?
They weigh as much as an idea floating by …
The magnitude of an opportunity cannot be measured – it can either be pursued or missed.
Some opportunities are wisely avoided, and some are gargantuan – joyous if we capitalize, painful if we miss them.
We’ve heard many stories/clichés on this point, like the story of Otto Rohwedder who decided to pre-slice bread (it took decades to catch on) or said, or when we react with, “Hey, I thought of that,” when you learned about some product innovation that nobody had thought of before. That might be TV, Velcro, sticky notes, the iPhone, little things that caused massive changes that nobody was asking for before those products were launched, and now we can’t live without them.
These are part of our life, and accordingly, innovators are trying to out-hustle everyone around the planet that never sleeps to be the first/best to market with their incredible and cool new thing. Think Uber, Lyft, Air B&B …
But not all thinking happens to the under-25 uber-smart guys and gals in Silicon Valley.
The best new idea might come from someone inventing a new financial product, a better Band-aid or new prosthetic joints based on animal joints (a new interest of mine). We need all these products – no so much for the products themselves, but for the intellectual and economic impact of having them vis-à-vis not having them.
Reader feedback:
I would wager Tru-dope wouldn’t understand this, cuz it doesn’t matter, NB, Three Hills, AB