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Innovation Lessons from Edison

How do we win with innovation? I've been arguing strongly that one of the key changes in thinking that we have to make is shift from an emphasis on the importance of ideas to one on the importance of execution. In other words, instead of spending so much time trying to have ideas, we'd be better off putting our time and resources into getting our best ideas to spread. Everett Rogers wrote the definitive book on innovation diffusion (unsurprisingly called The Diffusion of Innovations), and here's what he had to say about the issue:

Many technologists think that advantageous innovations will sell themselves, that the obvious benefits of a new idea will be widely realized by potential adopters, and that the innovation will diffuse rapidly. Unfortunately, this is very seldom the case. Most innovations in fact diffuse at a surprisingly slow rate.

Let's go back to the innovation metaphors that I was talking about yesterday - light bulbs versus shovels. Edison is famous because he invented the light bulb, right? That's why we always use the light bulb as the symbol of innovation. One problem: at least 23 other people invented working light bulbs before Edison did. Twentythree!

Why does Edison get credit for the light bulb then? Because he was the first one to build power stations and distribution cables so that everyone could use his light bulb. He did it by paying people to dig up New York to put in the copper wires to carry the electricity from his Pearl Street Power Station.

This story reinforces a few conversations that I've been having recently:

• Edison's key innovation was actually in the business model. He built a fundamentally different place for himself in the value network. Instead of waiting for others to build the infrastructure needed to get his idea to spread, his company built what they needed. Edison gets the credit because of the shovel, not the light bulb.
• Second, to get his idea to spread, Edison had to get people to unconnect (literally) from their existing value network (gas lighting), and get them to reconnect to his new value network (electricity). The gas industry didn't just sit by and watch the electrical cables get laid - they fought it all the way. The first 23 teams to invent light bulbs didn't fight this battle - but Edison's team did. The network that you're trying to tap into and the strength of connections within it determines how quickly your new idea can spread.
• Finally, I can't think of a better illustration of why idea execution is more important than idea generation. If all that matters it the idea, we'd be talking about one of the other 23 teams that invented a working light bulb, not Edison's.

If that doesn't convince you of the supremacy of the shovel over the light bulb, I don't know what will!

(pictures from Global Edison)

5 comment(s) for “Innovation Lessons from Edison”

	Ben Waters Says: Thursday, January 14, 2010Good stuff Tim. GE traces its roots to Edison and we still try hard to emulate him: 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. We've been running courses for a senior leadership teams called Leadership, Innovation and Growth. We make the same point to our teams as you make: it's not the quality of our ideas we need to continually improve but the quality of implementation.
	Tim Kastelle Says: Thursday, January 14, 2010Thanks for the feedback Ben - I'm glad to hear that what I said rings true!
	Jon Pratlett Says: Tuesday, February 02, 2010Interesting Tim. So, can the concept of 'lag' - the delay between conception and take up, in large part, be better explained in these terms.
	Chris Grannell Says: Monday, June 28, 2010Hi Tim, I agree with you that Edison is a great example to study because he understood the importance of getting the context right - not just the central idea. There's more: Not only did he fight gaslight as you suggest. He also tried to make his system look more like gaslight - since this was the reference point from which others would come to electric lighting. This understanding of social context served him well. In their excellent paper, Hargadon & Yellowless (http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~sjalbert/SOC/Douglas.pdf) suggest that Edison deliberately made the system of electric lighting look and work like gas – despite the fact that it cost money to do so. For instance, he changed the colour and power of the light emitted by electricity to make it literally look more like gas light. You made the point that Edison invested in his powerstation concept (the 'shovel'). But here too, the way he went about it was designed with gas users in mind. He chose a centralised distribution model over a local power plant model, even though the latter was cheaper and more attractive to investors. Hargadon & Yellowless explain that Skeuomorphs are functionless vestiges of earlier systems which are retained purely to help the user relate to a new system - a very powerful concept that all innovators could do well to remember! Cheers
	ben waters Says: Monday, June 28, 2010This is also why bicycles have saddles!

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