Listen to focus groups, but do not become your clients slave - the market is not always right
If you listen mainly to the mainstream you will create mainstream
Producing innovation that does not need instructions may take away power from explorative learners
Popularity is not identical with importance - selling for popularity sells out yourself
Serving people with what they ask for, is not always what they want
Lowering the price at the expense of lowering fitness for purpose, product or services quality is foolish
We need more curators, from places that are not so obvious
IMO, elites are people working on projects that counteract averaging down everything to become cheap and ubiquitous.
This post is inspired by Seth Godin's post: I'm an elitist
p.s. we, at UnRisk, made a few decision that one might find counterintuitive or even counter productive: we unleashed the programming power behind UnRisk. UnRisk Academy classes give full explanation on what is behind the curtain. This means we arm potential competitors of UnRisk solutions.
Edit: I recalled that I have written about one important aspect: without passion you may as well give up.
And good news is (from neuroscience): the human brain is well equipped to build innovation in communities of passion (deep inside our brain cells are neurons that will fire in reaction to anther's strong beliefs when they are transformed into actions).