Professor Walter's History Lessons

Not the results we were expecting...

In the 90's Pfizer was working on a new drug for hypertension and angina pectoris called Sildenafil .  Initial clinical trials showed it ineffective for angina.  When reviewing the list of side effects discovered during clinical trials one stood out.  An increase in penile erections. 

In 1996 the drug was patented for that purpose and in 1998 it became the first oral drug approved by the FDA for that purpose.  By 2001 Viagra had achieved sales of over one billion dollars.  Often drugs created for one purpose will end up with new, unexpected uses, in this case it created a new market for oral erectile enhancement medications.

So when confronted with failure in the development of a product be sure to take a long hard look at your results and see if there is another way to use it.

Sometimes a single random event can change the world - Sabre

In the beginning of air travel, tickets were manually generated and tracked via card catalogs.  As the number of travelers grew the airlines struggled to keep up.  American Airlines was at the forefront of improving the process with technology, but early attempts were met with limited success.  Their efforts still required a massive amount of manual labor and became a bottleneck in the volume of passengers they could handle.  Then on a flight from LA to NY a chance meeting changed aviation history.

C. R. Smith, the president of American Airlines, took his seat and next to him was sitting Blair Smith, a high ranking sales rep with IBM.  They started chatting on the topic of having the same last names.  As luck would have it Blair Smith had been working with the Air Force on a new system that used teletype machines all linked back to a central computer, one of the first online systems in the world.  Both of them realized that the technology the Air Force was using could be adapted to airline ticketing perfectly.

30 days later IBM sent a proposal to American Airlines to study the problem and see if an "electronic brain" was the solution.  In 1957 a formal contract to build it was signed and by 1960 the system was online in a testing mode.  In 1964 the system handled all of American Airline's booking and was the system was renamed to Sabre.  IBM, having just completed the task, began selling similar systems to other airlines with equal success. 

On March 15th 2000 American Airlines spun Sabre off into it's own company, it was publicly traded as Sabre Holdings until 2007 when it was taken private.  Today Sabre links more than 30,000 travel agents to more than 400 airlines, 50 car-rental companies, 35,000 hotels, railways, tour companies, ferries and cruise lines.  In addition they are the owners of Travelocity and allow more than 3 million consumers to purchase tickets directly.

And it all happened because two Smiths were sitting next to each other on a flight.

One last history lesson for the day - Kotex

As one of my readers has pointed out to me there was another use for Cellucotton that developed right on the front lines of WWI and continues to today.  In fact Kleenex's name is derived from this product.

During WWI Cellucotton was used by field nurses in France as a sanitary napkin.  When the war ended it was one of the first products to come from the war and reach mass-market.  Unfortunately stores were reluctant to sell such an item and store displays were often forbidden and magazine advertising often upset many readers.  Never the less Kotex became a household name and a major player to this day in the world of sanitary napkins.

 

Choosing the right path is hard, but it is never too late to change course - Kleenex

During WWI cotton was used in gas masks, however the demand for cotton in surgical dressings outstripped the supply for gas masks. Kimberly-Clark stepped forward and developed Cellucotton, a paper based material which was used for the gas masks and bandaging.  After the war they set about finding a new use for Cellucotton.

In 1924 Kimberly-Clark released the western world's first facial tissue based on Cellucotton, Kleenex.  It was marketed with the explicit purpose of removing cold cream.  By 1926 the company began to take notice at the volume of letters coming from customers about using the tissues as disposable handkerchiefs, as well as their own internal staff.  Intrigued, but not convinced to change course, they did nothing.  Eventually the head researcher for Kimberly-Clark convinces the admen to run a series of ads in newspapers in Peoria with mixed ads listing both uses.  Much to their surprise 60% of their customers were blowing their noses into the cold cream removal tissues.  Then they switched tactics and ran simultaneous ads to see what the success rate was of the same product for two markets.  The success of of the disposable handkerchief concept was so powerful sales doubled in the first year.  They changed course and by the 1930s Kleenex was only for blowing noses in the advertising.  Since that day they have been #1 in disposable handkerchiefs are still are today.

Just goes to show that it is snot too hard to find a use for a good product.

-Uncle Walter

 

Where some see waste others see opportunity - Kingsford Charcoal

Everyone out there knows about Henry Ford and his success with revolutionizing the world with his automobile.  Ford was one of the rare visionaries who would push through failure after failure and make things work in the end.  He knew the mechanics of business and learned that applying them properly could help reduce his costs and put his car in the hands of others.  He was also a huge fan of efficiency, and that is why he hated to see waste.  And the Model T made a lot of wasted wood.  In fact there was a mountain of wood scraps outside the plants where he build the cars.  So he set out to find a solution, and he did.

The Kingsford Company was formed by Henry Ford and E.G. Kingsford to convert the scraps of wood into charcoal and sell them.  Today Kingsford is the larges US charcoal maker.  Ford named the company after Kingsford, whom I believe was a cousin of some sort.

So for every waste there is opportunity.  You just need to figure out the best way to use it with fire.

-Uncle Walter