Any listing that attempts to set up a definitive number products, movies, books, places, restaurants, hotels and the like must necessarily be opinionated and subject to violent disagreement. That`s the risk a compiler faces with any list put together based on opinion rather than on laboratory research.
This list is no exception. It represents a series of selections that I have made using my own experience and the opinions of others whom I consider to be experts in their fields.
One could, of course, conduct a test-market survey and come up with the graded choices of 732 anonymous interviews, which in turn would be
mathematically translated into a market poll that would be as accurate as a pre-election forecast, granting a small margin for possible error. That, it seems to me, makes for dull reading. I prefer a piece that admittedly is opinionated, but that represents the best opinions of two or three people and is subject to complete disagreement by the readers.
The number ”25” was selected arbitrarily. It could just as easily have been a survey of 10 or 100 objects. Some time period had to be set to give limitations to the field. It is entirely possible that some of the selections may have originated prior to 1960, but, if so, they reached a state of marketability and consumer usage during the last 25 years.
Obviously, many articles used in current medical and surgical practice would supersede in importance all of the objects cited. They are not things that a consumer would purchase for personal use, but provide services that would be shared with hundreds or thousands of other users in hospitals. I would guess that the field of medicine has benefitted to a greater degree than any other from the advance in scientific capability as a result of recent wars and the space program.
It is interesting to observe that the factor making many of these selections qualify as new is the miniaturization of an older product, resulting in new consumer uses because of a reduction in size and consequent increase in portability. This trend is in its infancy; the next 25 years should witness the reduction of size of everything from war machinery to objects of personal use.
Here they are, listed in haphazard fashion:
1. The disposable lighter appeared on the market to provide convenience to smokers. Competition and mass production drove the prices down even as the decline in cigarette smoking decreased the demand for the product.
2. Man`s suicidal drive has been retarded by the development and improvement of the seat belt. Man and corporation have fought it mightily, but it looks like man is going to win by losing his battle against the seat belt as more and more states make its use a legal requirement.
3. The disposable razor did for this part of the century what the disposable blade did in the `20s.
4. The felt-point disposable pen decreased the cost of the writing instrument while vastly improving its performance. There are so many satisfactory ones on the market it is difficult to pick the winner.
5. The Polaroid camera: An invention that was important in itself, but which found numerous scientific applications.
6. Celebrity, a manufacturer of purse kits, took the Wash and Dry sealed- envelope idea and packed a synthetic fiber soaked with the most effective cleaning fluid that I`ve found in any type of container. It is called Cel-Clean.
7. Just as the motion picture was the great invention of the first quarter of the century, and television the great one of the second quarter, the video cassette and the video recorder are the standouts of the third quarter. They have made entertainment and education portable. The prerecorded entertainment cassette will eventually become inexpensive.
8. The credit and debit cards have revolutionized the concept of credit. The mass use of the cards on an international scale matured in the last 25 years.
9. The mobile automobile telephone has been one of the most useful tools of the businessman. Now the new cellular phone improves the quality of transmission so greatly that it becomes even more useful.
10. Contact lenses have solved the vanity problems of many individuals, as well as providing better vision for those engaged in sports and other activities in which spectacles were cumbersome.
11. The supersonic transport (SST) came alive in the last quarter of a century, but because of its high cost, commercial use has been restricted to the Concorde, which Air France and British Airways threaten to take out of the air as an economy move.
12. The four-wheel drive motor vehicle has been around for a long time, but in the last half-dozen years, the automatic adjustment was born, making it unnecessary to get out of the car to turn levers manually on the front wheels to engage them in front-wheel drive.
13. Disposable diapers speak for themselves.
14. The home computer, while hardly miniaturized, is so much smaller than industrial computers that it became practical in size as well as in price.
15. The quartz watch eliminated the necessity of ever having to wind a watch again. The only maintenance required is a new battery once a year.
16. The automatic focus camera, brought to its greatest state of perfection in the Sureshot camera of Canon.
17. I originally listed dictating equipment under the category of ”Less Than the Best,” but electronic improvements cause me to reverse my earlier opinion. The portable dictating unit enables its user to take it to all parts of the world.
18. The electronic typewriter brought increased speed and efficiency into the office and greatly eased the job of its user.
19. A lamp maker in Omaha, Cedric Hartman, designed a series of standing and desk lamps in 1967. He made them in his own little factory, thereby creating the most important lighting fixtures for the modern age. They have been copied by many makers, but the originals, still made in Omaha, continue to be the high standard product of the lighting industry.
20. The transistorized television reduced the bulk of the machine while improving the quality of the picture. The transistor also made it possible to radically reduce the size of a TV screen to the size of a wristwatch, a brilliant technical accomplishment without great benefit to the user.
21. The portable hair dryer is one of those articles that boomed as a result of the portability resulting from miniaturization.
22. The universal availability and simplicity of use of the birth control pill makes it one of the star products of the period. No other product even approaches its influence on the habits, health and sociology of the human race.
23. The Water-Pik has been about the only important contribution to dental hygiene care since the invention of the toothbrush. Miniaturization has also made it lightweight and portable.
24. The 3M Co. produced, just a few years ago, a product called Post-It, which we now wonder how we ever got along without. It`s the simplest of ideas: note pads in various sizes with adhesive on one side that can be stuck to another piece of paper, a book, or other articles to carry routing or other information.
25. It is difficult to recall life before the instant copier, but it did exist. Thanks to Xerox and its myriad of copiers (no pun intended), life has been made much simpler.
Stanley Marcus is chairman emeritus of the Neiman-Marcus chain of department stores. Now a marketing consultant, he is the author of three books and lives in Dallas.
