What do the I-Pod, The Tesla, Amazon and SpaceX all have in common? That’s easy they rocked their world. All of them were game changers. All of them changed the way we do things from the way we buy and listen to music to the way we build rockets and privately launch satellites into space. They all have something else in common. They people behind these innovations were all mocked, ridiculed and laughed at by people who stood watching on the sidelines saying that what these innovators were trying to do could not be done.

Tesla took the electric car from a humble nerd mobile that nobody wanted to a high performance luxury car that everyone with a hundred grand or mare wants enough try every trick in the book to get Elon Musk to sell them one.

Amazon has made buying things so quick and easy and yes economical that we are buying just about everything from them not just books, but vitamins and cosmetics and clothes and just about anything you can and with Prime for no shipping charges.

And SpaceX? Well let me tell you about SpaceX, this company changes everything. This is a private company that can build rockets a hundred times faster than NASA veer could and at a fraction of the price. Keep your eye on this company as they are about to change everything from the way we do business from commercial satellites to the way we defend this country. We all know about wind power which comes from those giant wind turbines right? Well wait until you see those wind Turbines that will be launched into space wirelessly sending power back to earth. Stay tuned for than my friends?

So now let’s get back to earth and talk about our little printed circuit board business. Our little almost sixty Billion dollar industry. Where is our Jobs, or Musk or Bezos? Where are our innovators? Where are those innovators who are going rock our world?

Where are those forward thinkers who are going to change the way we do things? Where are our geniuses who are going to come up with the next best thing? The best new way to handle our industry?

Of we are getting close. With printed electronics and wearable electronics we are getting closer. But still we are not quite there yet. We still haven’t seen anything come up the road that has any indication of what our next big step is. Now here is a challenge for you. If I’m wrong, if you feel that I am incorrect and that I am overlooking something please let me know. I honestly would love to hear about it.

But in the meantime I can’t help but thinking that it isn’t going to come from one of us old guys. We feel we have seen everything and done everything. Been there done that is not exactly a great pedigree for new innovation.

No I think our game changes are going to come to some kid somewhere who is going to come to our industry one day. Check out the way we have been doing things for the past sixty or seventy years and ask the right questions and when he doesn’t hear the right answers come up with them himself, or better yet herself. Now won’t that be something.

As I have said before in this column it’s time for the kids. It’s time for some new fresh blood to enter our ranks. It’s time for fresh minds filled with new ideas to come into our staid old industry and change everything.

I warn you, be prepared, you’re probably not going to like it when it happens. This person is going to look at our world in a whole new and different way and yes it’s going to shake everything we’ve ever believed in up to now.

But I would urge you to open up your minds when it happens. Don’t be one of those persons jeering from the sidelines but rather someone who will look towards the future with an open mind and welcome this new generation of PCN innovators with open arms.

I can tell you this. The time is very near and the need is very great. It is our responsibility to be looking for those smart young people, to find them, teach them about our industry so far and them to make it a better industry and thus a better world, invite them to rock our world! It’s only common sense.