Ratko Ćosić - lamentations of one programmer

In time of world crisis, it's a difficult to strive for new bright ideas - this is rather struggling to survive and try to sustain your business. Someone might ask me why I write about this anyway? Why trouble your mind with "bright new ideas" in time of relative insecurity and risk?

Well, indeed it is time to be conservative. But still, Obama has won the elections, Microsoft is planning to launch surface-based computers, home robots are doing the housework in Japan, and all kinds of human freedoms are already in state. We cannot be conservative anymore! And, we should not be afraid!



Tesla was one wandering spirit which always reminds me to be initiative. He was a man with many talents, a mastermind if you like. His ideas literally brightened the world. Therefore, I want to be something like him, at least 1 percent of him. Why? Because that's why the men are for. To take something grey and common and make a diamond of it. Take Apple for example, Sony, or Ikea.

But, how to make this happen? How to bring those brilliant ideas in action?
Well, I think the keyword is to be a stubborn. Not clever, not intelligent, not rich, not even lucky. But stubborn. I think that is the key.

Think of all these firms and individuals considered innovative, and the similarity is obvious - they all have being stubborn enought to succeed. They never gave up. In fact, majority of their ideas were failures, don't underestimate it! Maybe 1 of 50 ideas was successful. But they never gave hope. Just like we should not give hope in those turbulent times.
In Croatian, "stubborn" means "tvrdoglav", which litterally means "to have hard head". So, constantly punching the head into the wall is not clever, man can say very stupid. But, this is the path for ideas really come to life. Heads to the wall. When Tesla invented his works, he was stubborn enough to convince important people, we can say - a critical mass of people, that this would work. And it worked!

“Before I put a sketch on paper, the whole idea is worked out mentally. In my mind I change the construction, make improvements, and even operate the device. Without ever having drawn a sketch I can give the measurements of all parts to workmen, and when completed all these parts will fit, just as certainly as though I had made the actual drawings. It is immaterial to me whether I run my machine in my mind or test it in my shop. The inventions I have conceived in this way have always worked. In thirty years there has not been a single exception. My first electric motor, the vacuum wireless light, my turbine engine and many other devices have all been developed in exactly this way.” - Nikola Tesla

That reminds me about great precision about the idea itself, but NOT also for the profit. He trully depicted precisely each part of his idea in mind, but didn't have a clue if this gonna SELL. That is very important. The inventors are not managers, they do not care about the money. When they did so, the idea is entagled inside the economic system which is cold and not creative.

"Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value." - Albert Einstein