From idea to inspiration: How some of the biggest ideas in business came to be

Entrepreneur,  March, 2002  by Mark Henricks

Tags: Big Idea, Books

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ATTORNEY STEVEN D. STRAUSS HAS GATHERED DOZENS of tales about big ideas from Post-Its and Palm Pilots to Viagra and Silly Putty. And he tells them all in The Big idea (Dearborn Trade, $17.95).These accounts reveal how the TV remote, Teflon, Tupperware and many other products came to be, each chapter ending with a lesson that sums it up.

Some of the guidelines are obvious. No one will be dumbfounded to learn that "Nothing beats good publicity for increasing acceptance of an innovative product." But the stories illustrating these rules help make them memorable.

Take for instance the story of how Silly Putty languished for years as first a dismal industrial product and then a resoundingly unpopular toy. Then, when Silly Putty's promoter, excopywriter Peter Hodgson, was down to his last penny, amagazine writer happened on the now-familiar egg and touted it in The New Yarker. Hodgson netted 250,000 orders in three days. When he died 26 years later, the Silly Putty fortune was $140 million. That's the power of publicity.

Austin, Texas, writer MARK HENRICKS has covered business and technalogyfor leading publications since 7987.

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