A recent episode of 99% Invisible mentioned that basketball existed for 10 years before someone decided to cut the bottom out of the net so the game didn’t have to stop every time a basket was scored.

In a blog post this past week, Jon Acuff shared that even though dipping sauce containers have been around since the early 1980s it wasn’t until a year or so ago that they did the same for ketchup.

And right now KFC is advertising boneless original recipe chicken. Colonel Sanders opened his first restaurant in 1952. Did no one think of this until now?

All those ideas seem so obvious. Of course they have that. Why wouldn’t they have that.

Great design feels like that. Like it was inevitable.

And yet, as examples like these illustrate, great design — great, innovative ideas of any kind really — are elusive. It’s really, really hard to step back from what we already know to come up with ideas that are truly revolutionary.

In her book “Practical Charting Techniques,” Mary Eleanor Spear wrote in 1969 that creating excellent presentation visuals required three highly-skilled professionals: the Communicator, the Graphic Analyst, and the Draftsman.

Microsoft changed all that in 1990 by releasing PowerPoint. The implication was that now the average business-person could do what it once took three highly-trained people to do.

Unfortunately, even though business people now had the tools to create incredible visuals, they lacked the training and experience of professional graphics analysts and draftsmen. Which brings us to the current state of presentation visuals, which are really more like projected Word documents and speech outlines.

So, should we retreat to the old ways of having teams of highly trained people build slides for us? I think for some this is a good answer, but this can be expensive.

Should we instead help business people learn some of the basic design skills they lack? Should we teach design to new business students? This is certainly a less expensive route, but many business people may simply lack the desire to learn these skills.

I wonder if there’s maybe a third option. One that relies neither on completely outsourcing your slide building, nor relying completely on non-designers to do the work.

And so I sit here thinking about what that new role is. It’s a search for the next presentation design revolution. Like the basketball net, ketchup packet, or boneless original recipe, the answer’s probably so obvious it’s embarassing.

What do you think? Any slide designers out there found a niche in some third kind of arrangement? Or how about business people. Do you have an idea of how you wish things worked but no one offers it? If so, leave a comment. I’m all ears.

Just like Little Bunny Foo-foo, one day you can be bopping field mice and taking names on your business and the next, the well runs dry. Pesky Good Fairy.

When I was trying to get started digging up freelance work, I was reading everything I could get my hands on. I was blogging all the time. I was tweeting like a madman.

But then a few projects came along. Suddenly I was neck-deep in work. It was all I could do to get things done on time. Everything non-essential took a backseat. Things like reading and blogging and tweeting.

But then, something unfortunate happened. In focussing so hard on the here and now, I forgot for a few minutes that blogging and tweeting and sharing what I know were what got me that work in the first place. And I didn’t realize that by letting those things drop, I was setting myself up to be out of projects when my current projects were complete.

Creating and sustaining a business is easier than ever. Ubiquitous tools that used to be scarce. Social media connecting you to people you never would have had access to before. And lots and lots of generous folks with lots of experience who are giving advice away for free.

The problem is that those same resources are available to everyone.

The advantages you have today that make you so special to your clients may very well be the norm or even basic expectations tomorrow. What are you doing to make sure you maintain that stellar headstart you have now?

It’s easy to forget to keep yourself sharp. And the best way I know to do that is to constantly be focussed on consuming new ideas, books, blogs, podcasts, magazines, and presentations. And to then find ways to share those ideas with the people around you and be part of the conversation.

It’s great to read and consume and create generously when you don’t have anything else to do. But it’s perhaps even more important to make time for those things when you don’t have time. Because if you let it go for too many days in a row, you may end up with more free time to catch up on it than you want.

Don’t be like Foo-foo. Heed the warning before it’s too late.

Certain professions require lots of training and certification. Doctors. Hostage negotiators. Nuclear physicists. I’d really rather they know what they’re doing.

But for most pursuits there isn’t that level of risk hanging in the balance. In most cases the best way to get started is just to get started. Give it a shot. See what happens.

There’s really no benefit to delaying, since experience really is the best teacher. Taking more time to prepare really just delays success.

What are you delaying getting started on? Why? Can you start today?