Customers line up outside the first McDonald's hamburger stand in San Bernadino. AP Photo
Customers line up outside the first McDonald's hamburger stand in San Bernadino. AP Photo

Great ideas need a stage



What happened in San Bernadino California in the 1950s to change the way the world eats?

By understanding this story you'll get the inside scoop on successful innovation.

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Back to business

Every year all over the world, thousands of restaurants are opened and almost as many close their doors. Yet San Bernadino, with just over 100,000 residents, produced two restaurants that not only succeeded but went on to become household names - McDonald's and Taco Bell.

There are a lot of ideas generated every day, but few get from the drawing board to the stage and even fewer survive in the spotlight.

Why do so few ideas become great innovations? Let's look to the small town in California that changed the restaurant industry.

San Bernadino had almost everything working against it. It was relatively small compared with California's hugely populous cities of Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. It was a sleepy agricultural town. And it was on the wrong side of the state. But it did have one thing going for it - Route 66.

In the 1950s, Route 66 became the main highway for vacationers from the heartland of the US heading to Los Angeles.

This sharp increase in tourism gave rise to a burgeoning trade in all manner of roadside attractions and ultimately the birth of the fast-food industry. It was the site of the first drive-through restaurant, and the emergence of franchising as a business model. And San Bernadino was perfectly situated in the right place on Route 66. Ray Kroc, a travelling salesman of the Multimixer milkshake machine from Illinois, realised Richard and Maurice McDonald were using eight of his high-tech machines in their San Bernadino burger shop. This unparalleled usage caught Kroc's interest so he travelled Route 66 to discover what was happening.

When he arrived in San Bernadino, he found a streamlined, highly efficient restaurant called McDonald's. Using their "speedee service system", the McDonald brothers had taken great care in setting up their kitchen with each worker's steps being carefully choreographed, like an assembly line, to ensure maximum efficiency.

Believing in their formula, Kroc suggested they franchise their restaurants throughout the country. When they hesitated, he volunteered to do it for them. And, as they say, the rest is history.

Across town, Glen Bell found a niche in the fledgling Mexican-style food business. He was keen on selling tacos by volume, rather than making and stuffing them individually, as was the case in full-service restaurants. So like the McDonald brothers, Bell introduced a concept that revolutionised the way the world eats.

Route 66 provided a place where ideas could be discovered; great ideas need a stage.

Much of the focus on innovation is towards idea creation. While that is undoubtedly important, innovation is a combination of idea generation, improvement and idea exposure. In the case of the McDonald brothers and Glen Bell, the car phenomenon of the 1950s and Route 66 provided the much-needed exposure to transform their ideas into huge successes.

For any organisation's innovations to work they need to take maximum advantage of their geographical location. And this brings us back here - millions of people travel through the UAE every year.

Are they bringing new ideas to us? Or is the UAE the stage to showcase homegrown ideas?

Dr Tommy Weir is author of The CEO Shift and the managing director of the Emerging Markets Leadership Centre

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: ARDH Collective
Based: Dubai
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Sector: Sustainability
Total funding: Self funded
Number of employees: 4
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
 
Started: 2020
 
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
 
Based: Dubai, UAE
 
Sector: Entertainment 
 
Number of staff: 210 
 
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Our legal consultants

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

The specs

Engine: four-litre V6 and 3.5-litre V6 twin-turbo

Transmission: six-speed and 10-speed

Power: 271 and 409 horsepower

Torque: 385 and 650Nm

Price: from Dh229,900 to Dh355,000

COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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Frida%20
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How to protect yourself when air quality drops

Install an air filter in your home.

Close your windows and turn on the AC.

Shower or bath after being outside.

Wear a face mask.

Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.

If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Results

United States beat UAE by three wickets

United States beat Scotland by 35 runs

UAE v Scotland – no result

United States beat UAE by 98 runs

Scotland beat United States by four wickets

Fixtures

Sunday, 10am, ICC Academy, Dubai - UAE v Scotland

Admission is free

Cricket World Cup League Two

Oman, UAE, Namibia

Al Amerat, Muscat

 

Results

Oman beat UAE by five wickets

UAE beat Namibia by eight runs

 

Fixtures

Wednesday January 8 –Oman v Namibia

Thursday January 9 – Oman v UAE

Saturday January 11 – UAE v Namibia

Sunday January 12 – Oman v Namibia

Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah To The Last Goodbye
By Dave Lory with Jim Irvin

COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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SPECS%3A%20Polestar%203
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Moon Music

Artist: Coldplay

Label: Parlophone/Atlantic

Number of tracks: 10

Rating: 3/5

BULKWHIZ PROFILE

Date started: February 2017

Founders: Amira Rashad (CEO), Yusuf Saber (CTO), Mahmoud Sayedahmed (adviser), Reda Bouraoui (adviser)

Based: Dubai, UAE

Sector: E-commerce 

Size: 50 employees

Funding: approximately $6m

Investors: Beco Capital, Enabling Future and Wain in the UAE; China's MSA Capital; 500 Startups; Faith Capital and Savour Ventures in Kuwait

COMPANY%20PROFILE
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Dengue%20fever%20symptoms
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TEST SQUADS

Bangladesh: Mushfiqur Rahim (captain), Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Liton Das, Shakib Al Hasan, Mominul Haque, Nasir Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Mehedi Hasan, Shafiul Islam, Taijul Islam, Mustafizur Rahman and Taskin Ahmed.

Australia: Steve Smith (captain), David Warner, Ashton Agar, Hilton Cartwright, Pat Cummins, Peter Handscomb, Matthew Wade, Josh Hazlewood, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Matt Renshaw, Mitchell Swepson and Jackson Bird.

COMPANY%20PROFILE
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UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

Batti Gul Meter Chalu

Producers: KRTI Productions, T-Series
Director: Sree Narayan Singh
Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, Divyenndu Sharma, Yami Gautam
Rating: 2/5

Jigra
Director: Vasan Bala
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
Rated: 3.5/5
Company%20Profile
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THE%20SWIMMERS
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Company%20profile
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UAE's role in anti-extremism recognised

General John Allen, President of the Brookings Institution research group, commended the role the UAE has played in the fight against terrorism and violent extremism.

He told a Globsec debate of the UAE’s "hugely outsized" role in the fight against Isis.

"It’s trite these days to say that any country punches above its weight, but in every possible way the Emirates did, both militarily, and very importantly, the UAE was extraordinarily helpful on getting to the issue of violent extremism," he said.

He also noted the impact that Hedayah, among others in the UAE, has played in addressing violent extremism.

Joker: Folie a Deux

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson

Director: Todd Phillips 

Rating: 2/5

Vikram%20Vedha
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirectors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Gayatri%2C%20Pushkar%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Hrithik%20Roshan%2C%20Saif%20Ali%20Khan%2C%20Radhika%20Apte%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%C2%A0%3C%2Fstrong%3E3.5%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
POSSIBLE ENGLAND EURO 2020 SQUAD

Goalkeepers: Jordan Pickford, Nick Pope, Dean Henderson.
Defenders: Trent Alexander-Arnold, Kieran Trippier, Joe Gomez, John Stones, Harry Maguire, Tyrone Mings, Ben Chilwell, Fabian Delph.
Midfielders: Declan Rice, Harry Winks, Jordan Henderson, Ross Barkley, Mason Mount, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Forwards: Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, Tammy Abraham, Callum Hudson-Odoi.

The specs

Engine: 3.5-litre V6

Power: 272hp at 6,400rpm

Torque: 331Nm from 5,000rpm

Transmission: 8-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 9.7L/100km

On sale: now

Price: Dh149,000

 

Zidane's managerial achievements

La Liga: 2016/17
Spanish Super Cup: 2017
Uefa Champions League: 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18
Uefa Super Cup: 2016, 2017
Fifa Club World Cup: 2016, 2017