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INTRODUCTIONxviii

and consistently delivered on his promise of a ‘minor invention
every ten days and a big thing every six months or so’.

G Gary Mueller, founder of Internet Securities, Inc., one of the few
early companies to buck the dot.com trend of high-profile failure
and build a high-value and sustainable internet business model.

G Darryl Lenz, a working mother and a stewardess with American
Airlines, who got her initial business idea when she strapped a
child’s folding beach chair to her suitcase to make air travel with her
young son less of an ordeal and found herself mobbed by passengers
anxious to buy the unintended prototype.

G Jollibee Foods Corporation, whose structured and creative approach
to implementation planning allowed a small fast-food operation in
the Philippines to develop sufficient market strength to restrict
global giant McDonald’s to second place in the market.

G Trevor Baylis, who found a brilliant new use for old technology with
his clockwork radio, enabling communication about Aids to
communities without electricity or batteries.

G Iridium, the global mobile phone project which crashed to earth
when lack of a structured idea development process meant that
catastrophic blocks to implementation, including international
politics and inadequate technical performance, were overlooked.

G Anita Roddick, founder of Body Shop, who had the insight on
breaking bulk in the cosmetic sector while out shopping with her
young family.

G The Sinclair C5, the battery-powered one-seater pedal-assisted
tricycle which offered a single technology-pushed solution before
the market need had been fully explored.

G Phil Knight, the trained accountant who developed his intuitive
‘you’re-crazy-it-will-never-work-or-someone-would-already-be-doing-
it’ idea into global giant NIKE.

G Bill Bowerman, NIKE’s co-founder, who had the insight from
watching his wife make waffles for breakfast that a waffle-patterned
outer sole would improve traction and produce faster running times.

G Gordon and Carole Segal, who were so inspired by the types of
unique, functional and affordable designs which they saw during
their honeymoon in Europe that they founded the Crate and Barrel
retail concept on their return to Chicago.