Adopting innovation: the potato revolution. You’ve surely heard about how Frederick the Great cleverly motivated his subjects to convince them to cultivate and consume potatoes. But who has heard about solanine? Potatoes are a great analogy for embracing novelties in the market. Potatoes had two significant obstacles to reach the level of popularity they have today.
Potato Poisoning and Unveiling Knowledge
Firstly, potatoes are poisonous. If one doesn’t know about it and eats the green parts of the tubers, the notorious solanine will be remembered vividly (though there weren’t that many fatal cases). For the first three centuries since potatoes appeared in Europe, people knew nothing about them, and poisonings occurred (which also led to peasant uprisings). Today, it’s common knowledge for us to peel them, remove the sprouts, and avoid exposure to light that we don’t even ponder over it.
Innovative Storage Solutions
The second issue was storing potatoes through winter – it wasn’t easy to come up with the idea of mounding them with straw cover to prevent frost from ruining the harvest. It took a while before this simple method was devised. ‘Simple, but not easy,’ as Zbigniew Duda used to say. Therefore, Frederick the Great’s effort was indeed necessary (he even sent his chef to the starving Kołobrzeg to teach them how to prepare potatoes).
The Parallels of Novelty
The analogy lies in the fact that every novelty has its pitfalls, non-intuitive methods, behaviors, and it takes effort for its potential to break through such barriers. Sometimes, it doesn’t succeed, and the sure thing either perishes or waits for 300 years. What stories do you have about introducing a novelty to the market?
Advancements in Science and Caution
Adopting innovation: the potato revolution. It’s fortunate that current science is far more advanced than it was 200+ years ago, and we hardly test ourselves to check if those chemists are deceiving us. Oh, solanine dissolves well in ethanol, but I haven’t heard of anyone soaking green potatoes in spirits to rid them of poison. Too expensive? Also, there might be too much temptation with such a leftover solanine solution not to utilize it.
TRIZ Champion and Project Management Expert. Valued for opening thinking. The trainings he conducted were often a breakthrough event in the participants' careers. At TRIZ, he is fascinated by the possibility of providing simple solutions to difficult problems and breaking fixations. A trainer with over 20 years of experience, as well as a long-term member of the Supervisory Board at the ODITK GROUP. A respected speaker talked about TRIZ at Lean, Project Management (IPMA, PMI) and Production Management conferences.
