Inspiring Robbie Maddison, Red Bull and your companies innovation.

Happy New Year and a grand "welcome back" to the real world for many of you.  I hope you had a chance to see an amazing feat this New Years Eve.  Just about the turn of the calendar, Robbie Maddison flew his bike higher than anyone before, as a follow up to breaking a classic distance record last year.  You have to see it to believe it. This gut wrenching display of fearlessness was a testament to Robbie's vision and need to push the limits, as well as, the never ending ability of Red Bull to support athletes in the drive to break boundaries. This is how they differentiate their brand, and no doubt they helped conceive and execute this stunt with their partners in Las Vegas.

After Robbie collected himself, an ESPN commentator asked him, "if he was going to go bigger"?  "What was next"? 

All I could think was, "how the hell is he going to do that"?! "He'd have to jump over the moon"! 

You know what?  That's exactly what he should do.

Sure, he can't actually jump over the moon, but he could use that as a metaphor for inspiring his next stunt. 

Innovation in sport, business, or any other arena in life, needs to be sparked by ideas.  BIG ideas.  Ideas that sometimes are so out of this world, they could never be achieved.  That's how you build to 'bigger and better' solutions. 

What if you wanted to make the first sneaker that would allow anyone to dunk a basketball.  What would you do?

Propulsion devices in the heels?  New materials that react differently with certain surfaces, or at different speeds/force?  Court and shoe combination's that respond to a players intent specific to the feedback presented by the shoe??

How about eliminating the pesky problem of humans requiring so much food and sleep?  Where would you start? 

New diet pills?  Auto pilot systems in cars (close by the way)?  Recording devices that capture the ideas in our dreams?  The 'perfect' smoothie?  Promotion of a new paradigm in cultural norms by reshaping the expectations and actions of the people [we could learn from the Spaniards]?

The point is not to distract from the purpose of your innovation.  It's simply to start in the stars and slowly bring it down to earth.  Sometimes you can't think about simply going "bigger", with a 'height' in mind.  You need to think CRAZY BIG, then worry about how you can make it happen.

Let's hope Robbie and Red Bull find some spectacular inspiration.

I, for one, will be watching next year.