Innovators in the way

The path of innovation is fraught with, well, innovators. God forbid, if you are not a black-belt in any and every little skill and solution required in the fruition of your innovation, you are to be hit with a barrage of master innovators who have almost done exactly what you need done. Almost being the key. And, this is the key that holds the door to, well, the juicy fruit of success. The succulence lies beneath the dodgy exterior of ‘almost done’.

Mister Ken comes highly referred by a 30 year veteran of the industry. Mister Ken has supposedly devised just the machine that does absolutely everything that we want done and a little more. Can’t wait for the meeting.

Mister Ken starts with the story of how his grandfather was almost violated by the angry Pakistanis and how his association with the industry dates back to the days of such a lucky soul as the dearly departed grandpa. A quick wire review of the industry and what ails the ecosystem followed a dismal resignation over the state of affairs. The state of affairs is not very bright, I concede.

Then, the interception by an increasingly intolerant yours truly. A couple of counter-interceptions later a curt Q n A.

Q : Do you have a machine that can perform the functionality X? Yes or No.

A : Yes.

If I were to ever come face to face with the powers that grant powers, I’d ask for the simple power to cut through the bull-shit. The amount of hours that every entrepreneur spends negotiating through the pervasive ocean of bovine excreta is bound to beat the devotion to another rather silly activity of fantasizing who/what we like fantasizing.

What’s not fair is that there are no such powers and there is no escape. You have no choice but to let the humbug drone hum its course. You devote a million anxious moments in an indeterminate hearing to listening ratio for a single mention of the point in the picture. The entire frame is ornate with the precision of a Turk miniaturist except the big black ball of interest.

Having been at the helm of a hugely popular misadventure, it gives me shivers to reflect at the number of emails, voice calls and in-person meetings that precede a realization of no interest - each of them demanding equally serious consideration – one after another ad infinitum. To seek is to fall in the trap of possibilities - tough laws of the universe and rather putty concerns for the unfortunate suffering.

So you suffer through the circle of the other innovator’s concerns and petty attempts to understand you and your pocket, doing your best to avoid commitments till the mere certainty of a deal is established. You steer and duck, you jump and jog, you hmmm it and ignore it, you race like a maniac to get a proper validation of the curt Q n A - mentally reframing the offer / proposal along with the tinge of skepticism that you are desperately trying to suppress. You get battered by tangential projectiles and pull yourself back after a rather unhealthy mastication of a pill that just didn’t matter.    

A roller-coaster ride precedes every disappointment just like the damn egg comes before the damn chicken – every single time. Countless assertions, negations, interjections, exclamations, examinations and other such activities later, the first answer of an emphatic ‘yes’ takes a simple turn of ‘almost’ which is oft expressed by adding a ‘but’ after the ‘yes’.     

It is the Mister Ken innovators that shoot emails of salutations along with a proposal of merit to every interesting work in the news. It is the Mister Ken innovators that have the first plausible solution to every problem in the other’s domain. It is the Mister Ken innovators who usually have the accreditation and affiliation with weighty organizations. It is the Mister Ken innovators that make living just a little bit more painful than it should be, and thereby motivating to take charge once more. It ’s a lonely universe and we are but a pack of stardust trapped in a ginormous pool of antiseptic bullshit.