Month: September 2025

The Functional Innovator

On a hot day in St. Louis, Missouri, a concessionaire had a problem.

The vendor was selling ice cream at the World’s Fair of 1904. But with the temperature rising and customers lining up in abundance, he was running out of cups to hold the frozen treat.

Enter Ernest Hamwi.

Hamwi was serving up crisp, waffle-like pastries the next stand over from the ice cream vendor. And he sprang into action to help his neighbor.

Hamwi rolled some of his pastries into cones and delivered them off to the ice cream stand. The vendor then filled those cones with scoops of ice cream, giving patrons an edible cup for their delicacies.

The ice cream cone had an audience.

Few people know the name Ernest Hamwi. Or the name of the pastries he turned into ice cream cones. (They were called Zalabis, for anyone curious.)

But plenty of people are familiar with the broad strokes of Hamwi’s creation. They’ve heard the story of the hot day at the World’s Fair of 1904, of the cup shortage, and of the waffle cone substitute.

What they likely don’t know was that ice cream cones actually existed before Hamwi repurposed his Zalabis. Indeed, an Italian immigrant in New York City came up with a design for them in the 1890s, and he patented that design before the World’s Fair even came to Missouri.

Hamwi was the second mover in the ice cream cone space. And yet, his story stuck.

Why is that? Well, it comes down to two factors.

First, Hamwi’s quick thinking took place within a hub of innovation — the World’s Fair. Both wide-eyed patrons and inquisitive journalists were all around him.

Second, Hamwi deftly created a company to capitalize on his innovation. And other enterprising businessmen across St. Louis followed suit.

Ice cream cones became as synonymous with the city as toasted ravioli. Travelers marveled at the creation. And it started to spread through the Midwest, and then the rest of the nation.

This mixture of widespread attention and a corresponding business plan sparked the ice cream cone’s meteoric rise.

Ernest Hamwi might not have held the patent, but he had the golden ticket.

The origin story of the ice cream cone is more than a quaint tale.

It’s a powerful reminder of our errors when considering innovation.

You see, we tend to become enamored with the OG – with the original inventor of an item or system.

We consider that figure to be part visionary, part Santa Claus. We see them as the bestower of a great gift we can partake of.

But oftentimes, it’s not the original inventor who effectively transforms our lives. That honor belongs to the functional innovator.

The functional innovator is the one who brings the invention to the wider market. The one who incorporates the new contraption into existing systems, who expertly drums up demand, and who sets a tolerable price point.

Ernest Hamwi was the functional innovator of the ice cream cone. He might not have been the first to create the delicacy, but he was the first to make it broadly viable.

Similarly, Henry Ford was not the one to invent the automobile. But he was the one who turned it from a plaything for the rich to something available to all.

And Steve Jobs did not invent the personal computer or the mobile phone. But he ultimately made both ubiquitous in American society.

The functional innovator is part visionary, part connector. They can see where an emergent innovation can fit in society, and they can deftly execute a plan to make it so.

Yet, if they don’t have the force of personality of a Steve Jobs, or the business buzz of a Henry Ford, they can wind up all but forgotten.

And that omission has consequences.

As I write this, society is in the early stages of a tectonic shift.

In a few years’ time, Artificial Intelligence – or AI – has gone from the unknown to the ubiquitous. It’s in our jobs, in our schools, and in our lives.

Signs of this transformation are all around.

An electronic chipmaker – Nvidia – has become the world’s most valuable company, thanks to its prowess at powering AI. Corporate giants are racing to partner with AI specific companies – such as OpenAI – or to create their own models. And seasoned professionals are striving to get up to speed with the new technology, before they’re made redundant by it.

But for all the excitement about AI, something is missing.

A functional plan.

You see, despite all the talk of what AI could possibly do to enrich our lives, there’s little attention focused on what it currently does.

That’s left for us to determine. And both companies and individuals have been stumbling in the dark to try and find the answer.

This is a strange place to be in. It’s as if our garages are full of Model T’s, but the roads are filled with horses and buggies. And it’s been this way for a few years.

What this movement needs is a functional innovator. Someone who not only understands the nuances of AI but also has a concrete plan for its tidy placement within our culture.

The pioneers of the technology can’t fill this gap. They have the genius of technological creation, but not the business skills to compellingly bring their creation to the masses.

The AI companies can’t fill this gap either. They’re – understandably – too versed in the Silicon Valley valuation game to take on this critical task.

And the businesses and individuals experimenting with AI likely can’t fill this gap either. If they could have, we’d already be beyond this morass.

No, the functional innovator for AI powered technology is still out there somewhere. Their moment has yet to arrive, and the world has yet to change because of it.

That’s why the sizzle is still greater than the steak when it comes to AI. That’s why the potential remains so great, yet the risk remains so profound to all of us.

I hope this changes someday. Hopefully someday soon.

But when it does, I hope this pioneer is not forgotten.

Functional innovators matter. Let’s not pass up another opportunity to recognize them.

When Words Kill

In August of 1940, Leon Trotsky was sitting in his study in Mexico City.

It was a peaceful moment. A quiet moment. One that would soon be brutally disrupted.

For there was another man in the study with Trotsky – Ramon Mercader. And as Trosky started reading an article, Mercader hit him in the head with a mountaineering axe.

The blow proved fatal to Trotsky. And it caused outrage far beyond the Mexican capital.

For Trosky was no average citizen. He was a prominent writer and thinker, who also happened to be living in exile.

Yes, Trotsky – who helped form the U.S.S.R – had fled the bloc when he got on the wrong side of Joseph Stalin. And that separation seemingly negated the threat Trotsky posed to the Stalin regime.

Indeed, all Trotsky had left were his words. But those words still got him brutally murdered half a world away — at the behest of the regime.

Words, it seemed, could kill.

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So reads the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

There are only six words in that clause dedicated to the right to speak in America. But one of those six words is freedom.

For years, we’ve pointed to that right. We’ve considered it to be tougher than Teflon. Something that differentiates the United States from other nations.

The power of this right was made evident by looking across our southern border. Leon Trotsky – an exile from a nation 7,000 miles away from Mexico – still found himself in mortal danger there for something he’d said.

Such an outcome would be considered unconstitutional in America. It simply wouldn’t be allowed.

Or would it?

Twenty-three years after Trotsky’s demise, United States President John F. Kennedy was riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, when a bullet ripped through his skull. He was rushed to Parkland Hospital and quickly pronounced dead.

Kennedy’s accused assassin – Lee Harvey Oswald – was himself murdered during a prisoner transport days later. And conspiracy theories continue as to whether someone else pulled the trigger on shot that felled the president. So, we don’t know the motive behind the murder of the leader of the free world.

But what is clear is that Kennedy’s words, as much as anything else, led to his demise.

You see, John F. Kennedy was barely halfway through his term as president when he was killed. Most of the signature actions we associate with him — such as space exploration and Civil Rights legislation — hadn’t occurred yet. Lyndon Johnson would ultimately take those across the finish line.

We associate those actions with Kennedy because of his words. Because of his speeches and addresses.

It was Kennedy who declared We choose to go to the moon in this decade. It was Kennedy who spoke pointedly against the advance of the U.S.S.R. on multiple occasions. It was Kennedy who spoke out against segregation following the attacks on protesters in Birmingham, Alabama.

Any of those words could have driven an aggrieved opponent to violence. And they ultimately did.

Words could kill.

About four and a half years after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down in Memphis.

Much like Kennedy, King had towered over the 1960s. His activism in the service of the Black community had been extensive, and it led to extensive Civil Rights legislation.

But if we take a closer look at King’s contributions to that movement, it’s his words that come to the fore.

It was King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail that set a roadmap for his activism. It was King’s I have a dream speech that captivated so many — making his cause their cause.

Still, that cause – equal rights – was considered controversial in parts of our society. Indeed, an entire swath of the country was built on a platform that directly conflicted with that ideal.

So, an assassin decided to put an end to King’s letters and speeches. He spotted King on the balcony of a Memphis motel. And the assassin shot him.

Two months later, it was John F. Kennedy’s brother Robert who would meet an untimely demise. In the ensuing decades, President Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan would survive assassination attempts.

A stark reality was coming into view.

The carnage in Dallas wasn’t a one-off. It was the start of a trend.

Sure, people could say what they wanted in America. But if they were prominent enough, those words might keep them from seeing tomorrow.

This concept has come back into focus in recent years. President Donald Trump survived two assassination attempts while campaigning for his second term. And recently, conservative pundit Charlie Kirk was gunned down during an event at a Utah college.

Many have labeled these incidents as political violence, but that belies the point. These individuals were all targeted for exercising their First Amendment rights. And many of them paid the ultimate price.

Freedom of speech, it seems, only practically extends so far.

Back in 2008, I studied abroad in Chile.

Amid the peaks of the Andes and the serene beauty of the Pacific Ocean, I noticed something else – hordes of students engaging in protest.

As a college student who was months away from voting in his first U.S. Presidential election, I was intrigued by this development. But several people told me to stay away.

The police don’t play around here, they told me in Spanish. They show up in riot gear and use tear gas and water cannons. It will burn your eyes and ruin your clothes.

I was horrified by these descriptions. But the locals told me it had once been much worse.

During the reign of Augusto Pinochet, protestors weren’t merely sprayed with tear gas. They were whisked off to secret detention sites, never to be seen again.

It had been 18 years since that dictatorship ended and the disappearances ceased. But I could still see the wariness in the eyes of so many of the locals.

They were exceedingly kind. But they were also reserved. Even after four Pisco Sours, they were unlikely to speak their minds.

It was only those students – too young to remember the Pinochet era – who dared to speak up and face the tear gas.

This is the long shadow that censorship carries.

Rules and regulations, rights and freedoms – they supposedly set the groundwork for discourse. But once we see the blood splatter, or find our acquaintances whisked away, those guidelines go out the window.

The walls close in, and we clam up. A single bullet effectively silences multiple voices.

I worry about this fate befalling America.

Sure, the outliers and the extremists might continue to yammer on, even in the wake of violence. That is their prerogative, and the carnage will not deter them.

But what about the rest of us? Will we feel the same liberty to speak our minds, as we see the bloody corpses of orators on our screens?

I doubt it.

I’m not sure if there’s tidy way out of this conundrum. It’s hard to feel secure when violence is an omnipresent threat.

My only hope is for more of us to face our fears head-on. To leave the cocoon of self-censorship, and to share our thoughts with the world — as I’ve done here at Ember Trace for nearly a decade.

It’s a risk, yes. But it’s one worth taking.

Words can kill. But they can also change the world.

It’s high time we let them.

Lest We Forget

On December 7, 1941, America changed forever.

Shortly before 8 AM local time, Japanese forces launched a surprise attack on the military base of Pearl Harbor in Hawai’i. More than 2,400 people were killed as the base was largely destroyed.

The United States had stayed out of the early stages of World War II. But in the wake of this attack, it was clear that such avoidance could not continue.

In a speech the next day, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred to December 7th as A date which will live in infamy. He signed a declaration of war shortly thereafter.

American troops would soon find themselves fighting on the shores of Europe and the islands of the Pacific. Their efforts would prove fruitful, as the Allied forces defeated the Axis powers less than four years later. And that occasion was met with wild celebrations in the streets across our nation.

But even though America prevailed in World War II, it didn’t forget what was lost. For years, December 7th was a solemn day. A moment to reflect and to memorialize those taken from us.

Or so I’ve heard.

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

It was a staple in our household during my childhood.

On Thanksgiving morning, my sister, my parents, and I would watch on TV as giant balloons were paraded through the streets of New York City. Marching bands and a host of other performers joined in the festivities.

And then, at the end, Santa Claus made an appearance.

I found this all a bit confusing. We hadn’t even had our first bites of turkey and pumpkin pie, but Santa was already drawing attention to the next holiday. It made no sense.

But my parents assured me that this was all by design. Thanksgiving was the start of the holiday season, they stated. Everything from here on out would be focused on Christmas.

And that included December 7th.

I recall precisely zero mentions of the Pearl Harbor attack as that date passed each year. No memorials. No moments of silence. No recognition whatsoever.

I suppose this seemed logical to many at the time. It had been more than 50 years since the Japanese attacked, and our shores had remained secure ever since. The fall of the Berlin Wall had ushered in an era of unprecedented peace. There was little incentive to look back.

Yet, as I advanced through school — and read about the Pearl Harbor attacks in my history textbooks — I started to question this approach.

I heard my teachers stating Those who ignore the lessons of history are destined to repeat it. AndI hoped that wasn’t about to become the case.

It was.

I was a week into my eighth-grade studies when the September 11th attacks occurred.

Amid the feelings of shock and anger, I remember a sobering sentiment of regret that made the rounds.

We should have known that something this terrible could happen, as unlikely as it might have seemed. After all, it had only been a handful of years since a domestic terrorist destroyed a government building in Oklahoma.

So yes, regret was already instantaneous.

But it was a comment on the news that got to me that evening, even as I sat safe and secure at home.

This is the first time the United States has been attacked since Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbor. The attack so many of us had refused to memorialize, because it got in the way of Christmas planning.

Maybe if we all had paid a bit more attention to that attack, we’d have acknowledged the grim possibility of this one. We would have been more vigilant, more prepared, and better able to respond.

But no. We buried that tragedy. And now, we found ourselves paralyzed by another.

I felt shame as I considered all this. I felt regret.

And I felt a determination to never let the 11th of September become just another day on the calendar.

For many years, it was hard to forget the events of September 11th.

We saw the cavernous site of the World Trade Center in New York. We navigated through bolstered security at airports, arenas, and other public venues. We lowered our flags to half-staff each year and held solemn memorials.

Where were you on that day and how did you find out about the attacks? was a common line of inquiry when we met new people. Whether we were young or old, from the East Coast or the West Coast, that wretched day was something we all shared.

Even as our national discourse moved on to new topics — a war in Iraq, a financial crisis — we never quite lost the thread of what we’d endured on that sunny September day in 2001. We celebrated the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan and the Pentagon. We honored those lost in museums and memorials.

And then, it all faded away.

A new generation took the fore. One raised in an online world and forged in an era of pandemics and protest.

The events of September 11th were too antiquated for this group. The dangers of America lay in plain sight, not in the schemes of foreign terrorists.

And so, September 11th became just another day. The solemn pageantry became nothing more than background noise.

Our nation moved on. And my mission sputtered.

Or so it seemed.

How do we remember?

The common answers to this question are imagery and stories. A picture of Michael Jordan soaring to the hoop becomes a brand logo, and a cornerstone of our culture. A tale of Greek soldiers stowed away in a giant wooden horse at the gates of Troy becomes a timeless legend.

Yet, even with the recent advancements in technology, imagery and stories have a shelf life. They can fade or get distorted, tainting our memory.

Actions, on the other hand, never lose their luster. The precision of repetition can reinforce recollections. All while providing an example for others to follow.

I believe in a commitment to action, and in honoring my promises. And so, even as the world moves on from commemorating September 11th, I still will.

I will take a moment to honor the memory of those lost. To revisit my own difficult emotions from that day. And to reiterate my pledge to live filled with humility and grace.

It’s worth the somber silence. It’s worth the canceled social events and rescheduled professional meetings.

September 11th is not just another day to me. It cannot ever be that way.

I hope I’m not the only one.

Rebrand Risks

The logo caught me off guard.

A red, white, and blue ball appeared to be tilted upward. Beside it, the word pepsiappeared in blue, lowercase text.

Gone was the brand identity I’d grown up with. The one I’d seen on bottles in my high school cafeteria a few years earlier.

No more ball with a symmetrical white swoosh. No more PEPSI in capitalized italics.

Is this even the same soda? I mused. I endeavored to buy a bottle to find out.

Relief washed over my face when that familiar Pepsi flavor hit my tastebuds. The new logo was all I’d need to adjust to.

A few years later, I was driving home from work when I passed a Wendy’s location.

Only I didn’t quite realize it was a Wendy’s.

You see, this location didn’t have the familiar Old West font on its sign. Instead, Wendy’s was written in red script. And the illustration of a girl with pigtails above the wording had gone from cartoonish to semi-realistic.

Those same feelings of unease washed over me for a moment. But then I passed a McDonald’s.

The golden arches on the sign looked the same as they ever had. And I knew that the soda fountain inside would have the same script Coca-Cola logo I remembered from my childhood.

The calming sense of reassurance took over. All was still right with the world.

Why did these logo changes from Pepsi and Wendy’s set me off so badly?

It’s difficult to know for sure. But I believe the issues had roots in my childhood.

You see, logos were some of the first things I learned. Even before I could read or do basic math, I knew what the golden arches meant. The same with the Coca-Cola script, and a host of other brand marks.

The logos of that era were my frame of reference to the world. And I didn’t want that frame of reference to shift. Ever.

Of course, Pepsi and Wendy’s had bigger worries than my sentimentality. They were eternally in the shadow of Coca-Cola and McDonald’s — fighting for relevance and revenue.

While their rivals saw value in keeping brand marks consistent, it was actually riskier for Pepsi or Wendy’s to keep the status quo than to rebrand. So, they upset the apple cart.

In Pepsi’s case, they’d done this repeatedly. The logo I was nostalgic for was actually the fourth iteration of the company’s brand mark. Wendy’s had not rebranded before, but it was a far newer company than the soda maker.

I would eventually read business school case studies about this scenario. I would eventually become attuned to design trends through my marketing career. And I would ultimately fall in love with the art of the rebrand.

But I never completely forgot those moments when I spotted the new Pepsi and Wendy’s logos for the first time. That sense of unease lingered deep in my bones.

Good thing it did.

When I was a young adult, I was far from self-assured.

But if you asked me what my favorite restaurant was, I wouldn’t blink.

Cracker Barrel, I’d blurt out enthusiastically.

My reasoning was simple. Where else could you get a quality breakfast of chicken fried steak and eggs for a mere $12?

I was obsessed with that dish, and a host of other Southern staples on the menu. And I didn’t have the highest of salaries. So, I made my way to Cracker Barrel whenever I could.

This pattern broke a few years later. Despite how my heart felt about Cracker Barrel dishes, my stomach simply could not handle them. (Probably on account of all that butter and cream.)

I hadn’t thought much about the chain for more than a decade after that. But then, shortly before I sat down to write this article, Cracker Barrel changed their logo.

And it led to massive uproar.

At first glance, the new logo didn’t look all too controversial to me. The brown wording had been replaced by black. But the yellow background and the font that read Cracker Barrel remained intact.

What had disappeared was the caricature of a man sitting on a chair beside the wording, with his left forearm resting atop a barrel. The words Old Country Store on the bottom of the logo were also now missing.

That all was a bit jarring to me, but not outlandishly so. It simply looked like Cracker Barrel was simplifying its look.

It was only when I started reading some reports on the rebrand that I understood the revolt. The logo wasn’t all that Cracker Barrel was fixin’ on changing.

Indeed, the chain had remodeled many of its restaurants to match the streamlined logo. Walls were painted white and stripped of most accessories, such as rolling pins.

The “modern” look made Cracker Barrel look like one of those overpriced big-city brunch places. That’s the clientele the chain seemed to want to attract — for relevance and revenue.

This all reminded me of a rebrand TGI Friday’s undertook several years back. The “pieces of flair” made infamous in the movie Office Space were removed. The logo was streamlined. And the menu was revamped with more upscale dished.

That rebrand was mostly met with a shrug. And surely, management at Cracker Barrel thought their rebrand would see the same reaction, at worst.

But they were wrong.

You see, Cracker Barrel brass had conveniently forgotten where their restaurants were located — predominantly in the South and the lower Midwest. They’d conveniently failed to notice that their restaurants were more likely to sit along rural highway interchanges than in core of big cities. And they’d neglected to consider how an elaborate revamp would play in that environment.

This was more than tilting the ball on the Pepsi logo or modernizing the script on a Wendys wordmark. For Cracker Barrel’s core market, this was an outright betrayal. A signal that the chain was too good for people who wanted an affordable Southern-style meal in a homey environment.

And so, a consumer revolt broke out. And after a few weeks, Cracker Barrel was forced to retreat.

The old logo would return.

What can we learn from all this?

From the tinkerings of Pepsi. From the refreshed wordmark of Wendy’s. From the foibles of Cracker Barrel.

The biggest takeaway is that rebranding is a risk. No matter the perceived upsides, the downsides can be more severe.

It’s easy to forget this as a marketer. Like many of my contemporaries, I tend to value the opportunity of a shiny new megaphone more than the dangers of change. I tend to override the unease of seeing the familiar upended.

But maybe it’s time for me to tap back into that emotion. Perhaps it’s time for all of us to do the same.

The world is complicated, and so are emotions. Respecting that complexity — rather than blindly plowing ahead with our plans — seems prudent.

Let’s do so.