Innovation is the offspring of necessity.

I've had the great privilege to visit many African countries, and I'll tell you what, there is no greater sense of innovation that I have witnessed than on this continent.  Most people are shocked whenever I say that, but it's actually congruent with our experience in the developed world.  The greatest innovations are usually created and architecting from inception with little or no capital.  The coolest apps typically commence as the visionary exploits of a few nerds that are broke, locking themselves in their basements, gleefully coding their life away fueled by diet coke and twinkies.

Typically, when people think of this continent, they think of the need.  There is indeed a lot of that.  However, its in the chamber of this need that creativity is no longer an option but a necessity.  What does this have to do with workshifting you ask?  Everything! Workshifters are notoriously dealing with tight budgets, razor thin margins and aggressive schedules.  If there is one lesson I have absorbed from the time I spent in Tanzania it is this, in order to extract the most of our creativity, in order to truly innovate, it is imperative that we challenge our concept of problem solving.

Here I share my thoughts while I was workshifting from Tanzania a couple weeks ago.  If you can't view this video, you can check it out on my Vimeo channel.


When a problem, issue or opportunity arises in the next week, ask yourself: 'How would I approach this if I had no capital?

Photo by: Wayan Vota