To the best of my knowledge, Thomas Edison still holds the record for receiving the most patents over the longest continuous period of time: 1,093 patents over 62 years. Although a handful of individuals have now surpassed Edison's patent tally, no one has yet bested his ability to generate such a huge number of patents every year for more than 6 decades.
How did Edison maintain his edge for so long? And how can we tap into this robust storehouse of innovative thinking today?
In the next decade, increasing focus will be placed on creativity and innovation as drivers of competitive advantage - for individuals, organizations, and nations. It's more important than ever for us to understand the core tools that can help develop these skills. One crucial tool Edison leveraged was his ability to envision the future.
Ability to Envision the Future One Key to Edison's Success
Although Edison's innovation successes trace to multiple factors, I believe one huge driver lay in his relationship with the future. Edison loved the future. He imagined it in vivid detail. He savored it daily by drawing 3-dimensional depictions of his ideas in notebooks. He made crazy predictions. He made wild guesses. He put together futuristic prototypes - some right on the campus of his own laboratory. Think how bizarre the world's first movie studio looked sitting on the grounds of the West Orange Laboratory in 1893: a miniature house built on a swivel platform, with a tarpaulin roof that could be closed and opened in sections. That had to look pretty weird!
Edison's cozy relationship with the future was generated by two primary practices we can all benefit from today:
- Experimentation and prototyping
- Fantastical thinking and "science fiction" writing
Edison used these techniques to capture the future with such skill that his predictions were consistently sought out by scientists, governments, and the press. Edison had a keen ability to "see" what was possible, then create it!
Experimentation and Prototyping Key to Capturing a Future Vision
Edison's belief in experimentation as a means to propel new answers guided his view of the future. He said, "When I have fully decided that a result is worth getting, I go ahead of it and make trial after trial until it comes." In saying, "I go ahead of it..." Edison was referring to the place he sent his imagination: the future.
For example, when setting out in 1900 to develop a revolutionary new battery, Edison envisioned it not only surpassing the performance of existing electrochemical batteries, he envisioned it being "portable." "Portability" was an uncommon concept in the early 1900's. (Think how miniaturization, for example, is a recent concept today.) Lead was used in some early batteries at the time, making them preposterously heavy. But Edison imagined a lightweight battery that could be safely used in any setting - a factory, a vehicle, a remote construction location, or even the home.
After 5 years, 50,000 experiments, and lots of prototypes, Edison was victorious in delivering a cutting edge design which layered alternating iron and nickel "sandwich" wafers in an encased tower about 8" across and 16" high. (Some larger versions also were developed.) The Edison Storage Battery was an immediate success, and became one of his most profitable products. By conceiving of futuristic ways in which his product could be used, he was able to guide his experimentation process - and his prototyping efforts - with positive results.
Today, leading educational institutions like the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern have adopted Edison's perspective on the power of experimentation and prototyping. McCormick actually has a large prototyping "shop" on the basement level of its Evanston campus. Visitors walking into the building can see students at work, crafting their futuristic designs and then bringing them to life on the shop floor.
IDEO's project teams engage in similar experimentation processes, encouraging "rapid prototyping" with commonly available materials like pencils, paper, tape, or cardboard. Tom Stat, a senior executive in IDEO's Chicago office recently stated during a tour he gave me of the company's facilities, "Some of our most profound insights come from those first rapid prototyping efforts." By using prototyping as a form of experimentation, project teams can capture that future vision rapidly, and reduce cycle times in the process.
Edison Captured the Future by Exercising His Right Brain Through Science Fiction Writing
How much time do you spend connecting to the future? Do you have a corner of your office where you like to day-dream? Do you have a vision board with your latest schemes about what you want to do with your own life? Do you keep a notebook with insights about wild-eyed ideas you've had that could only "exist" in the future?
Edison did all of these things. And to ensure he wasn't "getting into a rut" about specific ways of conceiving the future, he began using a deeply powerful technique - science fiction writing - to unleash his right brain. The right brain is the portion of the mind that sees patterns, that sees "the big picture." It's much less concerned with facts, logic, or order.
Edison recognized that his imagination was his most powerful tool to create a future state. He realized that a solution was really just another way to express the future. He also knew that complex solutions could not be accessed from a present-day orientation. Future states could not be brute-forced, or conceived from linear constructs.
As you'll see in this month's Out-Of-The-Box segment, Edison was an avid fan of science fiction. He began writing fantastical stories in his notebooks in the 1870's. In his story lines, he dreamed up wacky concepts like producing electricity from coal, aerial navigation, suspended animation, high speed trains, using a single inoculation to cure multiple diseases, electroplating, and space travel.
Do any of these concepts sound familiar? They should...because they all exist today...but none existed in reality in Edison's time. Not even producing electricity from coal!
So, this is the power of fantastical writing. It leads the mind into new territory. It shows the way to the future. It offers new patterns.
If you're shy about starting your own "fantastical stories," take heart! Complexity expert Jean Egmon of Northwestern University, and co-author of The Prepared Mind of a Leader, says it's never too late. Her research proves that use of the imagination is innate to each of us. She says, "...imagination is based on human capabilities and experiences each of us already has had and just need to practice reassembling in new ways."
As Dr. Peter Diamandis - founder of the X Prize Foundation - said to me while I was writing Innovate Like Edison: "If you don't like the future that you see, create a new one." Experiment with new ideas. Prototype them. Write crazy, fantastical stories in your notebook. Envision the future, and like Edison, you can powerfully create it!
In The Next Issue: Aligning Goals with Passions
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