GDays Mandaue 2014: Musings on Innovation

Overview of GDays Mandaue here.

The first speaker up for the event was Wilson Ng of Ng Khai Development Corp. It was really inspiring for me to hear all the efforts he and his team made to pursue their desire for innovation.

"A businessman isn't necessarily an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is someone who creates new wealth through innovation."   -Wilson Ng

He first talked about how innovation starts businesses. What are your consumers' unmet needs and how do you, as an entrepreneur, fulfill it? For me, that guide question is something I've been mulling about for at least a year now. Starting my own business has always been at the back of my mind and I know, in time, I can do it, but what would it be about? An Internet Cafe? That'll be okay I guess but let's save that option as a last resort. An IT Solutions Company? Plausible. I mean, I know a few people I can work with if it comes to that but there are a few _{(abeit underground ones)} popping up here in Bohol and there are a ton in Cebu so it isn't something that hasn't ever been done before _{(in the two given provinces at least)}. I want to start something new, something fresh, something I'll love doing, but everyone wants to do that now, don't they. I guess I'll have to give that question 5 more years to think about.

"Open yourself up because business opportunities will come and go." -Wilson Ng

That is so true. I look two years back and I couldn't have gotten this far if I hadn't opened up to my first StartupWeekend or, if I look ever further, took the responsibility of being the Web Developers' Guild president, the opportunities that I got today, all the entries of this blog actually, wouldn't have happened. So thank you WDG :)

Mr. Ng mentions that there are two ways to do business: 1) Use proven techniques and 2) Try to do something new. Obviously, an idealistic person _{(such as myself)} would pick number two but is it really that easy? To do something no one has ever done before? The challenge isn't only the "how" but the "what", too. What hasn't been invented yet these days. You have to have a special mind _{(not a Beautiful Mind because that's just creepy if you get the reference)} to be able to think ways out of the box. Because face it, we use the phrase "think out of the box" all the time but do we actually know where the box is in the first place? Yeah. Think about it.

One misconception about innovation is that we think it's something totally new but in reality, it can be a marriage of two different ideas or the alteration of an existing idea where you can add or subtract something from it. The fact that you took time on renewing an existing business model or product to make it better is already a feat in and of itself. But just don't get it too over your head and end up actually making the product worse than it already was. That'll completely defeat the purpose.

And that's it for my musings on Innovation. Big thanks to Mr. Ng on giving us a "4-month course in 40 minutes" and for really getting my attention. This post will forever be in my "references for future life situations" column in my brain.

I suck at ending my write-ups.