Innovating as a Customer

The story of innovation usually focuses on companies building amazing new things. But rarely do we see the other side of the story: the customers who have the courage to make the future a reality. Without them, innovation simply wouldn’t happen.

One thing I have learned in my work with customers all over the world: there are a lot of innovators out there. The vast majority of them don’t work in startups. Rather, they work in all kinds of organizations — schools, government ministries, multinational corporations, nonprofits. They have a secret, maybe something they’ve never said out loud:

They want to change the world.

Many of them have passion projects that aren’t directly connected to their everyday line of work, but make them better at what they do. Maybe they’ve started their own businesses on the side. Maybe they’ve contributed to open source projects. Maybe they’re artists. In short, there is something that motivates them to take courageous steps that few people ever see.

When you work for a technology company bringing fundamental change to an established way of doing things — like Learning Machine — these people find you. They don’t announce themselves. At first, they see real value and want to talk. Over time, it becomes clear that they are willing to do what is required to bring about the future. Some of them recognize opportunity and quickly seize it before the window closes. Others move slowly, methodically, creating the necessary conditions to introduce something new. Every organization — and person — is different. But what they all have in common is that they keep showing up, keep moving forward. They will not be deterred.

The word “customer” needs to be understood more broadly if it is to accurately describe who these people are. A customer isn’t just someone who pays money for a good or service. A customer is someone who puts their resources behind the world that is coming.

People and organizations have a choice in how to spend their time, attention, and money. When they choose to place those valuable resources behind a transformative technology or a transformative team of partners, they are using the actual power they have to make the world better. There’s no magic to it, although it can often feel magical. The world simply changes because of the things we do, big and small. What we actually do is a choice we make about how to allocate the resources we have.

People often wonder how the world gets better. People often feel powerless to change things. Customers sometimes feel like if they’re not out building their own technology or company, they’re not really innovating. That could not be further from the truth. By contributing their vision, trust, and resources to new infrastructures and tools, they are using their real power to shape the direction in which the world moves.

That’s how you change the world. Together.