Some ideas seem to attract people. Sometimes you wonder why and at other times it can be a blinding flash of the obvious. This can all seem whacky to straight-laced, conservative people like me.
When the pet rock came out decades ago I was stunned by the almost immediate commercial success. It was obviously not a serious product, but it certainly caught on.
Perhaps these ideas gain popularity just because they are so wacky they can be used as a “gag gift” for birthdays and Christmas. Some ideas seem to gain traction because they push an idea into a new direction or enable people to experience something different. One that we tried for team building is a vertical wind tunnel that lets you experience flight. Needless to say, I didn’t join in that event.
China embarked on one that seemed interesting given the huge natural wonders within its boundaries: glass bridges. Frankly, I hate driving across large conventional bridges in the US. I choose the center lane and grip the wheel like my life depended on it. So, you can probably guess that I am not going to seek out glass bridges.
The following article appearing on www.weather.com, therefore, struck me as especially interesting:
https://weather.com/news/trending/video/chinas-glass-bridge-boom-facing-big-problems
Well then… perhaps this has some pet rock learnings. Or, is it more like the vertical wind tunnel paradigm: you are just not going to do this twice?
I guess that is why I have always wondered how businesses like https://www.medievaltimes.com/ can persist. I went once when our son wanted to go. I haven’t been back… won’t be back. It was great to see the re-enactments and it was fun once…
We in the energy space need to avoid business ideas like this…