Why looking out for ‘weak signals’ can help European companies stay in business

A Kodak engineer built the first digital camera in 1975. The bosses said: “That’s cute, but don’t tell anyone”. On inventing a filmless device that would revolutionise photography, the reaction inside the company, was more or less that it was a charming little toy and that they should probably keep quiet about it. Kodak had owned photographic film for most of the 20th century. That was the problem. They were so attached to what had made them rich that they could not see their own invention for…