Appealing to people’s emotions helps new ideas cut through the clutter.
Among corporate innovators, the travails of James Dyson and the unlikely insight of Art Fry are iconic. Dyson’s bagless vacuum cleaner was perfected only after a staggering 5,127 tries. Fry’s inspiration, interestingly enough, came during a church service. Pieces of paper he had used to mark hymns kept falling out of his choir book, which led the 3M scientist to think about the materials chemistry that eventually produced Post-it Notes. World-changing products, yes, but also great stories.
