[lit-ideas] Re: A Service Profession

  • From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:26:10 -0400

Mike asks many questions, but the only one I have any right to answer is this one:


(6) Where do new ideas come from?

Though 20 percent of new ideas come from one man -- Aaron Swanson of Lakehurst, New Jersey -- over 79 percent of the remaining new ideas come from a six square-block area of Towanda, Pennsylvania.

Towanda, Inc. This small town on the north-central border of New York and Pennsylvania has become a self-supporting corporation, financing public works and civic functions by royalties on new ideas generated in the "Idea District," a seedy, cobblestone hillside rusted and shadowed by abandoned industrial buildings, many of which have been converted into "Idea" offices and paneled lofts. At the next town council meeting, the new idea will be whether to move the source of new ideas to an abandoned grain silo and nunnery on the outskirts of the township. It's expected to pass.

Swanson remains a fluke, a kooky anomaly to the public, a nuisance to his geeky friends. Yet "the human idea mill" is also the breadwinner to many cats and a proud hoarder of balsa wood. A lifelong resident of Lakehurst, Swanson is rumored to have refused contract offers and commissions that required him to move to Towanda.

The remaining 1 percent of new ideas come from Europe and Asia. Forecasters expect that percentage to increase over the next ten years, especially in Asia, where China continues the development of its own Ideas initiative.
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html

Other related posts: