Camel milk

Some ideas seem pretty simple and hardly new: milking camels has been done in Africa for centuries. But it may actually require a lot of innovation to implement this idea in a different system: Europe, for instance.

This is the story of Frank Smits, who is committed to camel farming in the Netherlands. It is a very interesting case of innovation, where the main ideas and concepts of Schumpeter, Kuhn, and other experts can be applied.

I like these cases because they escape the hi-tech vision of innovation. As a point, the NYT article does not mention the word "innovation".

Design has a lot to contribute in cases like this. Developing new products of added value is quite a challenge, specially in a "new" market (the article talks abput "the world's growing array of camel's-milk products, like chocolate, ice cream and soap")...