gilda jennilee: fletcher - Business Innovation In Practice

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

on June 4, 2012 by Nikos Chatzis in Aviation, Business, Innovation, News, Comments (0)

Business Innovation

(Source of Photos: airplane-pictures.net / Virgin Atlantic / Virgin Galactic / Business Innovation / )

By Richard Branson

How Adventure, Celebrity And Sheer Determination Helped The Entrepreneur Build The Virgin Empire? / Business Innovation

?So,? he said, ?Ellis died, and you escaped only by the skin of your teeth. What we were wondering was, what on earth made either of you want to take those kinds of risks??
Why??Well, let?s not forget that Richard Ellis was one of the inventors of the Pterodactyl Ascender series of hang gliders. A few years after the crash, Jack Peterson, Jr. flew a Pterodactyl across the continentalUnited?Statesin?120-mile hops. His machine now hangs in the Smithsonian ? a stone?s throw away from SpaceShipOne, the first private manned space vehicle, which was designed by Burt Rutan.
?Well ?? I began slowly, not exactly happy with where this conversation was going, ?there was the thrill, obviously. And then there was the whole sponsorship thing. Ellis wanted me to champion this new form of flying that he was introducing to theU.K.fromAmerica. I?ve always loved the idea of flying and I thought: maybe I can use this to publicize what I do.?
The more I talked, the more connections I uncovered. ?You know hang glider wings are based on a design that was supposed to bring NASA?s Mercury capsules down to Earth? This of course ties in with what we?re doing with Burt Rutan at Virgin Galactic. Re-entry is the toughest recurring challenge for any space vehicle, and ?? I stopped. The publisher was grinning. / Business Innovation /

Throughout my career,?I myself have been deeply involved in projects that have pushed the envelope of manned flight. While I am known for drawing attention to Virgin, none of our experiments were just mere publicity ?stunts?; they were steps in our research and development process. Swedish aeronaut Per Lindstrand?and I crossed theAtlanticin a hot-air balloon in 1987 and the Pacific in 1991, setting records that still stand. The envelopes of those balloons were made of materials as radical then as Rutan?s space-faring composites are today.
Once you?ve solved all those engineering challenges, you?ll have to figure out how you?re going to turn your hard work into money. Drawing attention to your new idea or invention helps, but you?ll need a business plan.
The working method?I?ve described, with its components of engineering, adventure, celebrity and business, was not invented by the Virgin team, though it has carried me and my friends from a basement off London?s Edgware Roadto the edges of outer space. This approach drew admiration, criticism and incredulity long before Queen Victoria?s Parliament rang with laughter at the preposterous idea of a world airline; long before startled peasants took pitchforks to Jacques Charles? gas balloon in 1783. It takes a very long time to build a business. At Virgin, my team and I build for the future. And the future?s wild. / Business Innovation /

Tags: Business Innovation, Richard Branson, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Galactic

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