Just a few days after my wife and I returned from our vacation in the Galapagos Islands, Wall Street Journal taste columnist Eric Felten published a fascinating article about The Impossible Project, a last-ditch effort by Austrian entrepreneur Florian Kaps to save an endangered commercial species, the Polaroid instant camera.
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The last Polaroid film factory, in a suburb of Amsterdam, was about to be torn down, with demolition delayed by the sour economy. Aware that many Polaroid enthusiasts still exist around the world, especially in the arts communities, Kaps stepped in to save the old plant. He executed an eleventh-hour lease and hired Andre Bosman, the factory’s former chief engineer, to recreate the magic film and save it from extinction.
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For the time being, at least, the project is moving forward. The first batch of sepia-tinted black-and-white film went on sale in March. Color film is promised by summer. Kaps’ intervention — what we typically refer to as conservation when plants and animals are involved — had saved an endangered species.
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It’s not often we think of companies or products as species, but perhaps we should. It might help us to understand more clearly both product and company life cycles — how some adapt and change while others go the way of the buggy whip (which, for the record, are still made by U.S. companies such as Westfield Whip Manufacturing in Westfield, Mass.).
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The Origin of Tropical Penguins
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Before I discuss companies as species, however, let me introduce you to Eileen, my wife. Eileen is a molecular geneticist who specializes in endangered plant species and works at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Her most recent paper (with co-authors Joyce Maschinski and Jeremie Fant) was published in February under the title Using genetic and morphological analysis to distinguish endangered taxa from their hybrids.
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Eileen had long wanted to…