I was at a nice seafood restaurant the other day with gorgeous view of the marina, sunset glimmering on the calm water, and an empty stomach rumbling under my shirt. The restaurant was fairly average, nothing too spectacular or odd except there was no music playing. The waitress went on to explain that the speakers had blown and instead of making customers listen to static and crackles, they simply turned it off.

The wait seemed longer than usual for a restaurant that wasn’t very busy on a Thursday evening, but could have been due to our table size of 10 people. As I’m looking around I notice the butter knife beside my plate is oddly heavy. And, as I look closer, I realize something I’ve never seen before. Near where the handle turns into the blade, the metal of the knife protruded slightly to create a bump on either side. My mind was blown. It was to keep the tip of the knife off the table so that it wouldn’t spread food around. The handle part was weighted enough so that the end stayed down and the blade stayed up, sort of like a see-saw with an adult on one end and a child on the other.

It goes to show that you don’t always have to create the new Google Glass to be considered an innovator. You can be quite successful making small changes on what is currently working. I guess it’s similar to Darwin’s theory too, what is slightly better will prevail over the weaker, and eventually and the world evolves from it.

So whatever seemingly boring category you are in, change something, innovate, be creative, and do something different.

Joel Harrison