I happened to come across Google Scholar’s tagline encouraging searchers to “Stand on the shoulders of giants.” The phrase is usually attributed to a quote by Sir Isaac Newton who was deflecting praise for his vision and accomplishments when he said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” The phrase denotes others having done the work and you benefiting or building on top of it.
I’ve worried that I’ve used that as a justification for taking a couple different developed ideas and combining them to create something I call my own but know full well that it is really just a hodge-podge of other people’s ideas. Was I just saying “me too!”? Did the R&D I was doing really stand for “rip off and duplicate”? What kind of Entrepreneur am I? A friend noted as I was lamenting my quandary that as long as you were adding value you were creating and not just copying.
In Peter Drucker’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship, he traces the first use of the word entrepreneur to the 1800s. “The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower {productivity} into a higher area of productivity and greater yield.” -French Economist JB Say. It was first coined specifically as an intermediary between capital and labor. It is interesting to note the French meaning of the words ‘entre preneur’ would translate to a “between taker”.
Mr. Drucker elaborates by saying that often the entrepreneur doesn’t create the change themselves but looks for changes and capitalizes on the opportunities created by the change. Where is the need now? What opportunity has recent change created?
Innovation also is created by the combining of two unrelated components into something never before supposed. We liked that idea so we’re exploring a fun way to bring that experience and opportunity to you. We’re still trying to decide what to call the tool though. Email us if you’d be interested in trying it out for us. More details later.
