Continuing last week’s thread on 10x, not 10% – 10x thinkers, Ken Norton observes, don’t surrender to limitations – they get bothered by them. They look for ways around them, or things they can do to blow through them.
Google’s “Project Loon” is an example of 10x thinking. Project Loon is attempting to use weather balloons to bring reliable internet connectivity to underserved populations around the world. Whether Project Loon succeeds or not remains to be seen, but they’re trying.
A wonderful example of blowing through limitations comes from the 1960s when faster cargo ships and containerization revolutionized international shipping. However, when freighters from Hawaii reached San Francisco harbor in days instead of weeks, they were still forced to wait for many days since their documents needed to clear customs after arriving via postal service. Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom and Robert Lynn saw this as an opportunity – while ships were still being loaded in Hawaii, they drove from dock to dock picking paperwork. They, then, put them in their luggage, got on a flight to San Francisco and got the papers ready by the time the ships arrived.
Dalsey, Hillblom, Lynn => DHL.
It’s often easier to make something 10x better than it is to make it 10% better. – Astro Teller, Google[x]
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Source and thanks to: Ken Norton’s essay – 10x, not 10%
A Learning a Day 