At my 25th college reunion, I brought something unexpected: an Apple Newton MessagePad 2100. Yes, that Newton. The bulky, green tablet from the ’90s that inspired both ridicule and cult fascination.
Back in 1996, I actually used that device to take handwritten notes in class. Two and a half decades later, I powered it up for nostalgia’s sake, and it still worked perfectly.
The crowd laughed. “Remember when Apple tried tablets and totally bombed?”
Except Apple didn’t bomb. They were just 14 years early.
The Pattern We Keep Missing
The Newton (1993) failed. The iPad (2010) changed the world. Same idea. Same company. Wildly different outcomes.
What changed wasn’t the concept. It was the context.
This is the rhythm of innovation: ideas that arrive before their environments are ready.
- QR Codes (1994): Created for Toyota’s factory floors. Mocked for years in marketing. Then Apple integrated scanning into iOS, COVID hit, and every restaurant menu became a QR code.
- Video Calling (1964): AT&T’s Picturephone debuted at the World’s Fair. No one cared until 2020 made video calls a lifeline.
- Touchscreens (1965): Sat in research labs for decades. Then the iPhone put them in every hand.
The common thread? The ideas didn’t change. The world caught up.
The Trap Most Organizations Fall Into
Organizations often judge innovation by immediate traction. If it doesn’t work right away, it’s dismissed as a failure or worse, forgotten.
But “ahead of its time” doesn’t mean “wrong.” It means “waiting.”
The Newton wasn’t a bad product; it was an ecosystem mismatch. It needed faster processors, better batteries, reliable wireless connectivity, app ecosystems, and cloud storage, all things that would come later.
Remove any one of those ingredients and even the iPad would have failed too.
Why This Matters for Innovation Leaders
Most companies treat ideas like perishable goods. If they aren’t used quickly, they’re tossed aside.
But ideas don’t spoil, they mature.
That 2019 proposal that wasn’t feasible? The technology might be now. The feature that was too advanced for your users? Maybe your audience has evolved. The initiative that didn’t fit the budget? Maybe the business case finally does.
At IdeaScale, we see this pattern every day. When organizations maintain a structured repository for ideas, they’re not just collecting input, they’re creating a searchable archive of future relevance.
We’ve seen teams uncover solutions to today’s challenges hidden in submissions from years prior. The ideas didn’t change. The timing did.
Keep the Repository
Innovation isn’t just about invention, it’s about readiness.
The Newton in my closet didn’t get smarter over time. The world did. When I turned it on in 2025, people finally saw it for what it always was: a glimpse of the future.
So before you label an idea a failure, ask yourself: is it really wrong, or just early?
Keep the repository. Because one day, what seemed premature might be perfectly timed.
What “failed” idea from your organization’s past might actually be right for today?
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