Tough times and real problems drive much of the innovation we enjoy during the good years.
In the 1800's farmers and mills had a simple problem. They needed to move their grain in a way that was flexible, durable and safe from the elements. They had relied on wooden crates or barrels. Some industrious person lost to history began to use cotton sacks to transport the grain instead. This solved the problem and became the standard.
Soon a "sack of flour" was an integral part of every home. In fact, it wasn't only flour. Companies sold all kinds of staples in these cotton sacks. They became ubiquitous in American society; much like a cardboard shipping box might be ubiquitous for many today.
In the 1920's and 1930's as the hardships of world wars and the Great Depression overshadowed the country, some creative mom somewhere recognized that they had a ready supply of cotton already in their home in the form of these bags of staples. As resources became scarce and poverty set in, these resourceful moms began to use the cloth from the bags to make clothing, curtains, towels, among other things.
Asa Bales saw this trend and in 1924 he filed a patent on cotton sack that came with a pattern specifically intended to be reused for clothing. The patent describes using one kind of ink for the gingham clothing pattern and another type for the product marketing so that the customer could simply wash out the food branding and then reuse the sack material for clothing. He was awarded the patent in 1926 and assigned it to a St. Louis, Missouri company called the George P Plant Milling Company who brought the product to market with great success.
That initial innovation created a huge market for commodities sold in patterned cloth sacks. Millions of people wore these cloths as families struggled to make use of every resource at their disposal in coping with the hardships of the time. The demand for patterns became so great that the pattern started to drive the purchasing. This quote from a feed salesman illustrates the irony, "Years ago, they used to ask for all sorts of feeds, special brands you know. Now they come over and ask me if I have an egg mash in a flowered percale. It ain't natural."
Frustration aside, this simple invention which led to an innovation in affordable clothing (see how I distinguish between invention and innovation here) made life easier for millions of Americans struggling through the Great Depression and the impacts of two world wars.
And now when I buy my dress shirts for work, they are likely to be in a simple gingham pattern made more accessible by Asa's innovation. Resourcefulness in the tough times become staples of the good times.
The rise and fall of good times and hard times is very complex and hard to predict. Economies go through booms and busts regularly. Some are minor and others get special names like the Great Depression of the 1930's or the more recent Great Recession of the early 2000's. What is guaranteed is that we will go through these cycles.
The story of the sack clothing illustrates an interesting insight about the role of innovation in these cycles. Because innovation is the process of developing "fresh ideas that create value" (Richard Lyons), innovation tends to follow the problem. Difficult times unearth these problems and make solving them a matter of survival. So it stands to reason that many of our most enduring innovations are birthed out of difficult times. They go on to become product or service superstars during the good years when people have adopted them and have money to spend. But it wasn't the good years that made them possible. Instead it took the bad years to push us to solve a pressing problem that then could thrive and flourish in the good years.
It is important to stop here and recognize that many innovations are the products of the good times. An excellent example is the iPhone, which came out the year before the Great Recession in 2007. The mobile Internet innovation wave came about because of the maturing of mobile telephony and the vision of a few key technologists that invented a category (the smartphone) that had not existed before. The innovations in the mobile technology space were following different drivers.
But at the same time, it is very likely that the iPhone and its counterparts were propelled forward as millions lost their jobs in the Great Recession and pivoted to launch new endeavors that were mobile-first.
The key insight is that all innovations have drivers that push the new ideas into our lives as a solution to opportunities we see and challenges we face. In the good times, innovation is driven by opportunities that we are free to pursue because we have bandwidth and resources. In the hard times, innovation is driven by the urgency of limited resources and a desire to overcome the difficult situation.
So what moment are we in right now? There are many indicators that we may be entering into a challenging season in the global economy. Factors such as an increase in global conflicts, rising trade barriers, the unknowns impacts of AI on labor markets, and the impacts of persistent inequalities are sending shudders through the global economy. These could be indicators of a resurgence of opportunity or it could represent more difficult times ahead. We don't know what might happen, but the needs people have are glaringly on display. That means that there are opportunities to understand these needs and build creative solutions that add value to people's lives in practical ways (like the sack clothing a century ago).
Thinking about those cotton sacks made me think of a much more recent innovation using their equivalent today . . . the cardboard box. Last year I was in Nairobi, Kenya for an innovation event. One of the highlights of this conference was a field trip to an innovative organization in the area. We visited the work of The Action Foundation, a group that is working to end exclusion, discrimination, and violence towards children and youth with disabilities in marginalized communities. They support both the young people with disabilities as well as their parents. This is a critical work because in many communities disabilities are viewed as a curse or a drain on the families' limited resources.
Each of their interventions was filled with creativity and addressed very specific problems their beneficiaries faced. However, one stood out to me. It had to do with the families' need for sturdy high chairs designed to help children with disabilities sit at the table to eat with their families. Most families had no way to safely sit their children down to eat without holding them on their laps. This meant that the mom or dad were unable to coordinate the meal and help the other children get what they needed. It also meant that the children often felt excluded from the family time that they craved.
Their answer to this significant need was to build high chairs! Their process was inspiring. We visited the workshop where a few parents of the disabled children that The Action Foundation supports were working on the chairs. They took cardboard, a wooden seat, tons of paste and a water-proof laminate. As they assembled them, I wondered if it was possible for the product to be sturdy and safe enough. But I got to see a finished product and I couldn't believe it. It would have stood up against one of the high chairs I had purchased for my kids years earlier.
The team had taken the resources they had at their disposal, provided jobs for the parents and developed a simple product that meant parents could feed their families more easily and include everyone in the mealtime process. This innovation is emerging from great hardship, but I wouldn't doubt if someday I might find a high chair made of similar materials in my local store.
The lesson in each of these stories is this: Don't wait to innovate.
If times are hard, your sector is being disrupted, uncertainty reigns, and resources are scarce, that is the exact moment to reimagine what you do in order to address the pressing challenges that arise from hardship and propel you into the next season of plenty.
Sources:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_sack_dress
https://flashbak.com/feed-sack-fashions-and-patterns-of-depression-era-america-374786/
https://archiveproject.com/the-amazing-history-of-flour-sack-dresses-10-photos
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