Ten Decisions that Helped Shape our World

1. Walt Disney listened to his wife, Lillian, and named his cartoon mouse Mickey instead of Mortimer. Entertainment was never the same after Mickey and Minnie debuted in Steamboat Willie in 1928.

2. In 1950, Frank McNamara found himself in a restaurant with no money and came up with the idea of the Diners Club Card. The first credit card changed the nature of buying and selling throughout the world.

3. Ignoring market research, Ted Turner launched the Cable News Network in 1980. No one thought a 24-hour news network would work. It did.

4. In the early 1960s, Philip Morris repositioned Marlboro as a man's cigarette. This positioning, and the Marlboro cowboy, helped create one of the world's most successful and durable brands.

5. In 1924, Thomas Watson, Sr. changed the name of the Computing-Tabulating Recording Company to International Business Machines. The company had no international operations, but it was a bold statement of ambitions.

6. Sony chief Akio Morita noticed that young people liked listening to music wherever they went. He and the company developed what became the Walkman, first made in 1980. There was no need for market research. "The public does not know what is possible. We do," said Morita.

7. In 1850, Julius Reuter used carrier pigeons to communicate share prices between the end of the Belgian telegraph line in Brussels and the end of the German line in Aachen. It was the beginning of the news and information business.

8. In 1948, the world's first instant camera the Polaroid Land Camera Model 95, was demonstrated. Management bravely decided to price it at $89.75 against Kodak's Baby Brownie, priced at $2.75. The entire initial stock of 56 was sold on the first day, and Polaroid was launched.

9. Ray Kroc liked Mac and Dick McDonald's stand in San Bernardino, California, selling hamburgers, fries, and milk shakes, so much, that he opened his own franchised restaurant in 1955 and formed McDonald's Corp. Kroc went on to create a huge global company and a vast market for fast food.

10. Michael Dell decided to sell PCs direct and built to order. Now everybody in the industry is trying to imitate Dell Computer's strategy.

Reprinted from Management Review, November 1998.