For as long as I can remember, I’ve adopted new products and services when they are just starting out. It’s very common that I get requests to “try this and that” for startups looking for early adopters and beta testers. As such, my main objective in adopting products and services that are in beta is the following:
- Staying updated on the latest stuff that doesn’t fit with the current reality;
- I get a feel for what could be next on the horizon from another perspective;
- How can begin to adapt it to the real world and what would I learn.
It’s rare that I come across other people who do the same, most adopt a new product or service only once it’s become part of the daily conversation. Unfortunately, the same applies to wannabe innovators…
This is the classic case of being an early adopter. But there is a distinction between adopter and adapter: innovator’s aren’t the early adopters, they are the early adapters.
Yesterday, I was a judge for a showcase of projects from marketing students of a local university. Most of the projects that were pitched are apps that exist elsewhere in some form; nothing game-changing. There were many common innovation myths that were present in many of the pitches, such as “our competitive advantage is being the first ones in Mexico”, “our competitive advantage is there isn’t something like this anywhere”, “our competitive advantage is we have no competition”. 
Make a splash in the short-term or play for the future? In business, there is a constant tension between playing to win right now and making bets to be relevant in the future. Most focus only on the former, while 
It all starts with a wild question. In the tech industry, it might be, “what if people could carry their whole music library in their pockets? iPod. In the automotive industry, it might be, “what if a supercar could also work as an electric car? Porsche 918. 
As a rule of thumb, 
BIG ideas get all the attention by the media, bloggers, journalists and the like because Big ideas, like anything that is coming out of Google X, have the possibility to create waves of change for society.