Creative and Profitable

Why begrudge someone else's success just because they took of an advantage of a creative idea before you? I'm not sure why some people feel this need; to me, that's just "my bad" and it means I need to take some action!

What am I referring to? These interesting business ideas are just a few examples:
- Million Dollar Web Page (http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/); the ones I like the most are the single-pixel ones - some of which are either reserved for someone, have an order pending, or are just plan silly (see if you can find the "Pimp My Pixel - the Wave of the Future" one!)
- One Red Paper Clip (http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/) tells of one man's journey from one red paper clip to owning a house in Saskatchewan
- Pixledoodle (http://www.pixeloodle.com/) - another knock-off or will this one work too? The owner is almost half way to their goal...
and more...

While these might just seem like gimmicky internet ideas, the reality is that they:
- created attention around a particular theme
- the creator was able to create tangible value from an intangible idea
- someone else saw enough value in what was going on that they gave the creator money, time, etc.

Nothing wrong with that. Does that mean that this is the forefront of some new business model we all need to start worrying about? I don't think so; not at this stage, anyway.

I think that it's a good experiment that shows the possibilities of making technology accessible to people, and letting them see where their creativity takes them. And that's where businesses need to show more courage. I tried to get my old company interested in web blogs (6 years ago), just for internal uses. I used examples of car companies letting their employees blog about all sorts of things - gardening, the company, etc. - and showed how it actually helped the company overall. It was over ruled as a "potential security issue". Now, the CEO blogs and is talking with the SEC about disseminating financial information to the world via a blog.

Companies, industries, organizations...if they've been around for a bit they have a vested interested in the status quo. After all, that's a large part of what got them where they are in the first place. I understand why governments might think that way. I have a harder time supporting this notion for the marketplace. Sticking with what you know will usually just get you more of what you've already got.

Now, what are you going to do with it?