Sir James Dyson, he of those vaccum cleaners styled like the Pompidou Centre, writes a guest column in Wired. Don’t you just love those multi-coloured contraptions and don’t you covet Sir James’ new “Air Multiplier” fan?
Dyson’s story is an inspiration. He had faith and he laboured long years to bring his revolutionary bagless cleaner to the market through thousands of prototypes:
There are countless times an inventor can give up on an idea. By the time I made my 15th prototype, my third child was born. By 2,627, my wife and I were really counting our pennies. By 3,727, my wife was giving art lessons for some extra cash. These were tough times, but each failure brought me closer to solving the problem. It wasn’t the final prototype that made the struggle worth it. The process bore the fruit. I just kept at it.
Yet when I spied the new mini version, The City (the DC26 for vaccum heads) on the shelves of Costco I just had to have it. Now this is a vacuum cleaner. It’s very light, easy to carry around and as far as I can determine does just as good a job as its bigger brother.
This is a fad bordering on an obsession.
Still…. don’t run away with the idea that I love housework. I hate it with a passion. But I am always looking for easier ways of tackling the dust, just as we constantly strive to improve our productivity systems. I just love buying them, rather than using them.
Dysons are the Macs, the iPads and iPhones of the carpet-cleaning world. “Sir” Steve and Sir James, they make a good couple.