Unproven ideas

Investing in 'unproven ideas'. Who dares?

Over the past few months I've heard people talk multiple times about the importance of 'unproven ideas'. In very different contexts, the same message kept coming up: imaginative, risky ideas need room to grow and be executed.

Without these ideas — often conceived and championed by rebellious, slightly stubborn people — progress stays marginal, just a small step in the direction of improvement.

The first call to give 'unproven ideas' a chance came in a medical context. Where life and death are at stake, risk-taking must of course be accompanied by the greatest possible care. And yet even in this field, beaten paths need to be broken to bring about renewal.

Experimenting, however risky, is literally a matter of life and death.

The challenge is often not so much finding the visionaries with wild ideas, but securing the resources to actually execute them.

Large organisations sometimes set up a dedicated unit for this, so that 'unproven ideas' get a chance outside the corporate rules, processes and systems.

I recently spoke with someone from the Shell GameChanger programme, which nurtures radical ideas with an impact on the future of energy. I'd call it a kind of playground for innovation.

What a thing it is, with the backing of an organisation like that, to have the freedom to dream, to try, to fail and to try again — better this time. Even if no one is waiting for your unproven idea.

Maybe not. But that's no reason not to fight your way from 'unproven' to 'proven'.

Who was 'waiting' for the microwave, the internet, Facebook, the iPad?

This summer, Blendle reached 100,000 users. Alexander Klöpping said that at the origin of the idea, it was not at all proven that the digital kiosk — where people buy online newspaper articles from different publishers — could be a success.

It was through the determination of the founders — and not through the initial reactions of publishers and investors — that the platform eventually came to exist.

At first, of course, no newspaper or magazine was waiting for new competition with a completely different, highly accessible business model.

And yet it appears — and this too is not yet fully 'proven' — that the industry actually benefits from this new concept and that a new readership has been attracted that previously wasn't willing to pay for news consumption.

In the financial sector too, as jury chair of the Financial Marketing Award (FMA), I've seen examples of genuine innovation. Sometimes from the big players, and often from new entrants who think radically differently.

Those who take real risks by giving unproven, wild ideas space and resources can make a meaningful impact on financial services.

Such ideas often seem threatening to the established order, but — just like Blendle — they can also give a sector a real boost.

I look forward to this year's FMA submissions. Will there be unproven ideas among them? Who dares?

Kim Cramer is Jury Chair of the Financial Marketing Award 2014. This article was previously published in VVP Online.