Created 24SEPTEMBER97
Folio 12 Abet innovation (Embrace a new concept
today.)
Concept and execution: Maimark & Barba, Inc.
Photography: Id Issacs
Publisher & printed by Sanders Printing Corporation
Not only the young say it:
The old ways are often not good enough,
sometimes lethal.
So innovate.
Innovate or perish.
People. Companies. Schools. Countries.
You.
And soon.
Luxury of leisurely adaptation long since gone.
Goodbye Darwin.
Someday is never.
Urgent.
But change is frightening.
Ambiguous.
Unfamiliar.
Strange.
A bereavement.
(It tool us so long to get almost comfortable with the way it is.
Oh, so sad.)
We are the greatest obstacle.
You and I.
Can we learn about the future from the past?
Can we learn by studying resistance to change?
Often very funny.
Enjoy.
*But not too much, friend.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends upon
the unreasonable man."
"All human institutions since the dawn of prehistory or earlier had always been
designed to prevent change--all of them: family, government, church, army.
Change has always been a catastrophic threat to human security."
"The disturbing fact is that the vast majority of people, including educated
and otherwise sophisticated people find the idea of change so threatening that
they attempt to deny its existence. Even many people who understand
intellectually that change is accelerating, have not internalized that
knowledge, do not take this critical social fact into account in planning their
own personal lives."
"The difficulty with these rare geniuses is that they can be recognized only in
retrospect, never in prospect. You never know for certain that your
present-day tormenter, who you think is a crank, may not turn out to be another
Goddard..."
"At every crossway on the road that leads to the future...each progressive
spirit is opposed by...a thousand men appointed to guard the past."
"...invention demands men with fanatic faith in their ideas, men willing to
ignore the experts who say it cannot be done, men unafraid to butt heads with
established authority..."
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible,
he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he
is probably wrong."
"...the innovators who develops an invention into a commercial product or
process and tries it in the marketplace contributes as much or more to
technological innovation and economic growth that the originator of the
idea."
"Given the underground resistance to change...the new idea either finds a
champion or dies."
"Persecution of great discoveries was due partly to mental resistance to new
ideas and partly to the disturbance caused to entrenched authority and vested
interest, intellectual and material. Sometime lack of diplomacy on the part of
the discoverer has aggravated matters. Opposition must have killed at birth
many discoveries."
"...the process of innovation is not simply an act. It is not just design, or
market analysis, or investment, or entrepreneurship, or the intricacies that
intervene between the concept and the marketplace. It is all of these, a
complex sequence of steps. And it is all the more complex because there is
nothing automatic about it. The engines of innovation are human beings."
"Do you know that all great spurts in...progress came just after some
unorthodox ideas or exotic impressions had penetrated into a closed system?"
"In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the
man to whom the idea first occurs."
To prophesy is extremely difficult--especially with respect to the future.
"I watched his countenance closely, to see if he was not deranged... and I was
assured by other Senators after we left the room that they had no confidence in
it."
Reaction of Senator Smith of Indiana after Samuel Mores
demonstrated his telegraph before member of Congress (1842)
"...as far as I can judge, I do not look upon any system of wireless telegraphy
as a serious competitor with our cables. Some years ago I said the same thing
and nothing has since occurred to alter my views."
Sir John
Wolfe-Barry, at a stockholders meeting of the Western Telegraph Company
(1907)
"...we hope that Professor Langley will not put his substantial greatness as a
scientist in further peril by continuing to waste his time and the money
involved in further airship experiments. Life is short and he is capable of
services to humanity incomparably greater than can be expected to result from
trying to fly...for students and investigators of the Langley type, there are
more useful employments."
New York Times advice to Samuel Langley in
1903 one week before the successful Wright Brothers flight at Kitty Hawk
(Langley is credited with the first unmanned airplane flight on May 6,
1896)
In 1913 Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube which made broadcasting
possible, was brought to trial on charges of fraudulently using the U.S. mails
to sell stock to the public in the Radio Telephone Company, "a worthless
enterprise." In the court proceedings, the district attorney charged that "De
Forest has said in many newspapers and over his signature that is would be
possible to transmit the human voice across the Atlantic before many years.
Based on these absurd and deliberately misleading statements, the misguided
public...has been persuaded to purchase stock in his company..."
De
Forest was acquitted, but the judge advised him"
"...to get a common
garden variety of job and stick to it."
In 1876 Chauncey M. Depew asked his friend, the president of Western Union,
whether he thought he ought to acquire a 1/6-interest in the Bell telephone
patent for $10,000. His reply: "There is nothing in this patent whatever, nor
is there anything in the scheme itself, except as a toy."
"Mr. Bell, after careful consideration of your invention, while it is a very
interesting novelty, we have come to the conclusion that it has no commercial
possibilities."
J. P. Morgan's comments on behalf of the officials and engineers of Western
Union after a demonstration of the telephone.
There has been a great deal said about a 3,000 mile high-angle rocket. In my
opinion such a thing is impossible for many years. The people who have been
writing, these things that annoy me, have been talking about a 3,000 mile
high-angle rocket shot from one continent to another, carrying an atomic bomb
and so directed as to be a precise weapon which would land exactly on a
certain target, such as a city."
I say technically, I don't think anyone in the world knows how to do such a
thing, and I feel confident that it will not be done for a very long period of
time to come...I think we can leave it out of our thinking. I wish the American
people would leave that out of their thinking."
"That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done...the [atom] bomb will never
go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives."
Admiral William Leahy to President Truman (1945)
"...a pretty plan; but there is just one point overlooked--the steam engine
requires a firm basis on which to work."
Sir Joseph Banks,
President of the British Royal Society (early 1800's)
"Even if the propeller had the power of propelling a vessel, it would be found
altogether useless in practice, because the power being applied in the stern,
it would be absolutely impossible to make the vessel steer."
Sir
William Symonds,
Surveyor of the British Navy (1837)
In 1908 Billy Durant, in trying to raise money to create an automobile trust,
boasted to J.P. Morgan & Co. "that the time would come when half a million
automobiles a year will be running on the roads of this country." This annoyed
Morgan partner George W. Perkins who said "If that fellow has any sense, he'll
keep those observations to himself." Unable to raise capital in Wall Street,
Durant went home and put together something called General Motors.
"The Edison Company offered me the general superintendency of the company but
only on the condition that I would give up my gas engine and devote myself to
something really useful."
"The actual building of roads devoted to motor cars is not for the near
future in spite of rumors to that effect."
"There is no plea which will justify the use of high-tension and alternating
currents, either in a scientific or a commercial sense. They are employed
solely to induce investment in copper wire and real estate."
"Good enough for our transatlantic friends...but unworthy of the attention of
practical or scientific men." A committee of the British Parliament in 1878
reporting on Thomas Edison's ideas for developing an incandescent lamp.
"...the advancement of the arts from year to year taxes our credulity and seems
to presage the arrival of that period when further improvements must end."
The U.S. Commissioner of Patents (1844)
Concept and Implementation by Maimark and Barba, Inc.
Folio 12 was conceived and executed by Maimark and Barba, Inc.
This your
advertising/marketing agency has been particularly adept at presenting complex
and esoteric concepts and products in exciting and eminently understandable
ways. Indeed, this group often functions in product areas that would seem to
defy attempts to create simple yet powerful communications. but even with
difficult subject matter. Maimark and Barba manages to generate excitement with
imaginative, effective presentations.
Sanders asked this agency to pick a subject, any subject for Folio 12 and to
develop it in a way that might demonstrate their abilities. Their response to
this challenge was to make us all face man's tendencies to resist change and to
misjudge our ingenuity in solving impossible problems. Folio 12 is certainly a
fine example of Maimark and Barba's ability to deliver a high impact
message.
Maimark and Barba, Inc., 185 East 38th Street, New York, New York 10016,
212 LE 2-4566.
Photography by Ed Issacs
All of the photographs in Folio 12 were made by Ed Isaacs, a
perfectionist
behind the cameras and in the darkroom, whose ample and versatile talents have
been utilized by magazines (House & Garden, Seventeen, American Home) and
agencies (Doyle Dane Bernbach, Young & Rubicam, J. Walter Thompson, Benton &
Bowles, BBDO, Ted Bates) for a wide variety of clients (Air France, Clairol,
DuPont, Texaco, IBM, Squibb). Ed Isaacs has a unique ability--as his stirring
photographs for Folio 12 clearly demonstrate--of infusing drama into even
ordinary subject matter. Mundane, overphotographed objects become distinctive
and exciting when Ed Isaacs is doing the shooting.
Ed Isaacs Studio, 18 East 17th Street, New York, New York 10003, 212 MU
5-5620
Typography by Graphic Arts Typographers, Inc.
Typography for Folio 12 was the work of Graphic Arts Typographers,
Inc., a
high quality full service typographic organization whose clients include such
names as: Doyle Dane Bernbach; Wells, Rich & Greens; Ketchum MacLeod & Grove;
and BBDO.
Graphic Arts Typographers, Inc., 401 Park Avenue South, New York, New York
10016, 212 889-6060
Mechanicals by William Reduto
With an eye for the appropriate and the motivation and execution
of
true
craftsman, William Reduto turns out work that ranks with the best. If you want
to judge the quality of a man's mechanicals, ask a printer. Ask Sanders about
William Reduto.
William Reduto, 527 Lexington Ave., New York, New York 10017, 212 PL 5-0368
For further reading resistance to innovation:
- "Technological Innovation" Its Environment and Management." U.S. Department
of Commerce, Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office,
Washington, D.C. 20302 $1.25 (1967)
- "Concentration, Invention, and Innovation." Hearings before the
Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly (May, June 1965), Superintendent of
Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20302 $1.25
- "Technology and Change," Donald A. Schon, Dell Publishing Company, Inc.,
New York (1967)
- "Erroneous Predictions and Negative Comments Concerning Exploration,
Territorial Expansion, Scientific and Technical Development," N. T. Gamarra,
Legislative Reference Service, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20541
(1969)
- "Managing Technological Innovation," Donald R. Schoen, Harvard Business
Review (may-June 1969)
- Technology, Management and Society," Peter E. Drucker, Harper and Row, New
York (1970)
- "Future Shock." Alvin Toffler, Random House, New York (1970)
Published and printed by Sanders Printing Corporation
Folio is published by Sanders Printing Corporation for two
reasons:
It
provides a showcase for the talents of individuals and organizations whose work
in graphic communications is outstanding while also serving as an example of
the printing we do.
For other examples of printing by Sander, for insight into our performance,
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Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art; Oxford Paper Company;
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Schuster, Inc.; J.P. Stevens & Co., Inc.; Thonet Industries; U.S. Industries;
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Postscript:
That prestigious
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reflex response: "We can't afford Sanders quality." Before you reach that point
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Sanders Printing Corporation, 350 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014,
212 691-1070
Folio 12
Folio is presented as a tribute to individuals and organizations
whose work
in graphic communications merits acclaim.
Candidates for inclusion in Folio are considered whether or not they have
already achieved widespread recognition.
Selection of those to be saluted is made on the basis of outstanding talent and
unique accomplishment, demonstrated over a sustained period of time. Earnest
consideration will be given to all candidates suggested. Previous issues of
Folio were prepared by Chermayeff & Geismar; Louis Silverstein (New York Times
Promotion); Papert, Koenig, Lois; George Tscherny; CIBA Design Staff; Gaynor &
Ducas; School of Visual Arts; Push Pin Studios; Mo Lebowitz; Herb
Lubalin.
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SANDERS PRINTING
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350 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10014, 212 691-1070