You may recall back when we discussed disruptive versus sustaining technology, one of the things we talked about were digital cameras. Specifically, besides Kodak anyway, we talked about Polaroid and its inability to keep up in an ever crowded digital-photography marketplace.

And that was unusual, because Polaroid is a stalwart photography company that has been around for a long time, and made some iconic cameras. The most well known of those, of course, is the Polaroid One-Step line of cameras, in which you’d press the button and a picture would come out. Well, not a picture but a piece of film that you’d have to wave around in the air and the picture would slowly develop; it’s sort of like the digital cameras we have now, inasmuch as you could see the picture shortly after you took it and decide if you liked it or needed to take another.

In fact, the design of that film became iconic in culture, as even digital prints are sometimes depicted as having the white border and larger chin of the Polaroid instamatic film. While the loss of the film didn’t result in a song by Paul Simon like some other films, there was an outcry, its demise made the national news, and it eventually came back! Apparently people still use those cameras a lot. So it’s only fitting that now, at long last, there is a museum dedicated to the Polaroid. And guess where it is? That’s right, it’s right here in Las Vegas.

I haven’t yet been there, but as soon as I get the chance, I will go, take some pictures with my non-Polaroid Icon, and if I don’t get thrown out because of it I’ll post them here.