‘Vision without execution is hallucination’
– Thomas Edison
I used this quote in my PhD defence presentation. I loved the quote then and I continue to love it today. The message continues to be so relevant, even in my current work at Quuppa.
Over the years, I have heard many exceptional ideas, thought up by some amazingly innovative people, but unfortunately only a fraction of them become anything real or tangible. Not because the ideas are flawed, but because the execution of the vision fails for one reason or another. Of course, often these reasons are outside of the control of these visionaries. Sometimes they are related to environmental or economic factors. Other times the timing is just not right, i.e. the market is not ready or educated enough to receive the technology. For example, recently I saw a picture of an electric scooter from the early 1900s (see for yourself by checking out this article by Mashable) and it got me thinking about how the idea and vision was already brilliant back then, but that it took us (as people and as a market) a whole 100 years to understand the it and adopt electric scooters as a mainstream technology.
From the time that we started Quuppa, we knew that we have to find a way to avoid the trap of failing to execute. We have a great technology, we even have a clear vision of what indoor positioning can offer the world, but we are aware that this is not enough to make our dreams come true. To really make location-based services ubiquitous, we need a credible way of executing our vision. And this is where our ecosystem of partners comes in.
The way we see it, no one company alone will ever be able to take on the whole indoor positioning market. It’s a massive market, where every vertical, every application and even every building is in some ways it’s own little planet. Finding one solution that could fit every use case is impossible. But, we believe that together with an ecosystem, we can find our way to the vision.
Together with our partners, we can build the missing links that could otherwise prevent location-based services from taking off. We can find the industry-specific solutions that are needed, we can meet the building-specific requirements and we can execute the steps needed to get to the point where location is the same as connectivity. That is, when every customer expects location-based services as they enter a building and when such services are so familiar that we forget that in 2020, we were just taking the first steps towards the market reaching its full potential.
It is my pleasure to head to the office every morning and work closely with partners to develop new solutions that step by step take us towards executing our joint vision. Be that in retail, sports, security, or even logistics and healthcare. For example, Bitwise, who has created the robust Wisehockey solution for digitising sports such as ice hockey and football. Or HB Reavis, who are developing people-centric smart building solutions to promote wellbeing. Or Indutrax, who offers solutions for digital factories.
Our Ecosystem is why we can execute on our vision, why it is not just a hallucination. Together we can make Location ubiquitous!