In the past week, I’ve had two instances where someone has told me about a new technology or strategy that’s become huge and is gaining lots of traction. In both instances, I realized that they were things I’d learned about a year or two before. At the time, I got the gist of the strategy or technology, but didn’t understand it deeply or why it was different. I also had no idea that they could grow to become as large and important as they are today.

This got me thinking that I need to do a better job of spotting things that have large upside potential. I know it’s not possible to catch everything that will become big that crosses my desk, but I think there’s definitely room for me to improve in this area. I do a good job of finding new stuff because I like to research and learn, but I think I need to do better at understanding the current landscape and why these new things are potentially disruptive and game-changing given the current landscape.