Caramel Cone

I wish I could write in great detail of all the progress that’s been made on my innovation project. Instead, I write out of guilt for not having written anything in a long while in the hopes that I’ll inadvertently threaten myself to make progress.

Haagen Dazs makes an amazing ice cream called Caramel Cone. If you’ve never tried it, I strongly encourage you to run out and get it…now. Seriously. Only then will this post make full sense.

A couple of nights ago I walked into my neighborhood bodega in pursuit of this ice cream. I’m salivating as I open the freezer door, giddy with anticipation of pairing Caramel Cone with Woody Allen’s Match Point. And, sorting through the various pints of ice cream, searching, I suck up the drool and gasp realizing my ice cream is nowhere to be found.

The freezer is about waist-high and there are 4 tiers of ice cream pints spanning 8 rows back and 8 rows wide. Essentially, the freezer is a cube of ice cream in which my beloved flavor is trapped among mediocre flavors like vanilla, chocolate, and rocky road.

Most people would give up and suffice for something like mint cookie, thinking it special just because it’s green. Not me. This is Caramel Cone. So, for about 10 minutes I’ve got my head and half my torso thrown in a freezer. To get to my flavor I’ve got to unstack all the undesirables, and then restack them onto other undesirables. The clerk came up to me, concern on his face, my sanity in question. But with a glance at my expression he backed away, slowly. Finally, fingers cold and numb, I unstacked my prize.

My innovation project and this scenario are strikingly similar. Whereas the project itself is the ice cream – perfect (or almost), waiting to be purchased and devoured, I find myself maneuvering around the various “pillars” of corporate culture and process. And I want to see change, and have the idea grow and become more than it was ever intended to be… But I fear that the project will be passed through so many warm hands that by the time it makes it to someone with authority, it will have melted.

-Kelsey LeGassick