Examine the Past for Ideas of the Future

I ran across an article on The Register today about a new method to hide secret messages in internet traffic discovered by some folks at the Warsaw University of Technology.

The article, Hiding secret messages in internet traffic: a new how-to, discusses this new method that really isn’t that new at all: Stenography.

I think we can all learn something from these researchers: Many times the root of a new discovery lies in something we already know.  The key is to re-apply it or think about it in a different way to come up with a new and innovative solution.

I’ve thought for a long time that advances in technology come primarily from the application, not the technology itself.

Take Jack Kilby for instance, he is from Great Bend, Kansas, and created the first integrated circuit.  Without applying this invention to a simple computer (a calculator in his case, he worked for Texas Instruments) the invention is worthless.

Xerox came up with the first GUI, and it didn’t get them anywhere.  It took someone to apply it correctly (Microsoft) to really make a difference.

The true genius of invention is application.  Without a task to complete, the technology is essentailly useless.

Try doing the same in your business and life; try looking at old things a different way, you may be suprised with what you can come up with.