History is rife with examples of
breakthroughs and innovative leaps. However, if we look to the past 150 years,
we begin to notice a clustering of breakthroughs around a handful of
organizations that set themselves apart from the rest of the world. While many
individuals and companies have contributed significant efforts to the
development of innovative technology, specific labs like Menlo Park, Bell Labs,
PARC, and Google X have become veritable innovation factories. Most for more
than a decade and in some cases, for an entire generation, the culture and
structure of these labs provided the perfect storm of people, processes,
placement and problems to nurture technological genius.
So what is this perfect storm? Far from
being chosen ones with crystal balls, these organizations had targeted,
calculated strategies and approaches to generating consistent breakthroughs. By
analyzing four of the most successful labs in the history of human kind, we
hope to uncover their approaches and shine a light on what creates the culture
of innovation.
Menlo Park
Menlo Park would serve as the location
for Thomas Edison’s groundbreaking research lab. It was opened in 1876,
operated for roughly a decade and at its peak, occupied more than 2 square city
blocks. Edison’s “Invention Factory” applied for about 400 patents and gave the
world the phonograph, a practical incandescent light, the carbon microphone,
the electric generator and the electric power distribution system.
Edison’s team was populated by
brilliant individuals from all over the world who were largely engineers and
master tradesmen – clockmakers, machinists, glassblowers, etc. His lab became a
small industrial city, housing nearly all conceivable materials and the
equipment necessary to turn these into new inventions. While Edison was a
controlling visionary with his work, he pushed his employees to work long hours
and to constantly tinker, build, test and refine. Many of his patents were
filed as improvements (albeit drastic) to existing inventions as the strength
of Menlo Park came not necessarily in its ability to generate unforeseen
concepts, but in making breakthroughs that optimized and improved existing
inventions to make them inexpensive and robust enough for the consumer market.
Edison had created the first industrial laboratory that, instead of leaving
research to the academics and application to the factories, brought the
conceptualization, development and production of new technology under one roof.
Bell Labs
Bell Labs, Alexander Graham Bell’s
namesake research lab, was the creative brain trust of AT&T and Western
Electric. Formally formed in 1925, this powerhouse of technology would spend
more than 5 decades as the world leader in communication technology. A staggering
7 Nobel Prizes were awarded for work completed within the Labs, including the
invention of the transistor, discovering cosmic background radiation, creating
the CCD and, though never awarded a Nobel Prize, Claude Shannon produced the
foundational approach to information theory in 1949, laying the pathway for
computers.
While not headed by a singular,
controlling demi-God such as Edison, Bell Labs housed its share of
techno-heroes to be idolized: Jewett, Shockley, Shannon, and Fletcher. Similar
to Menlo Park, Bell Labs brought together multidisciplinary teams that worked
to control the full cycle of concept development: theorization to production.
However, Bell differed in 2 major ways. In addition to hiring tradesmen and
engineers, Bell was staffed by a number of theoretical academics – physicists,
chemists, etc. – who were largely held unaccountable for their output and given
the autonomy to research by their own interests, sometimes without a clue of
what potentially lay at the end of the tunnel. Realities of business existed
and the Labs were not without focused projects and deadlines, however, the
senior management believed in the scientific pursuit of knowledge and that
financial benefit would ultimately emerge. Yet perhaps the most important
element of Bell Labs’ success was its endless challenges. Due to the sheer
enormity of the AT&T network and the problems and realities of scale,
incoming employees were surrounded by problems to solve and stimulus on how
they could improve the world.
PARC
Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) was founded
in 1970 as the research wing of Xerox.
Though still existing today as an
independent subsidiary, PARC’s heyday was in its first 15 years of operation
under the guidance of Bob Taylor. Anticipating trends a decade ahead of their
time, PARC would make some of the most important advances to computing
including Ethernet, the modern personal computer, GUIs, email, laser printing
and object-oriented computing.
Once again, a multi-disciplinary,
collaborative, and exploratory culture at PARC reigned supreme. However, PARC’s
collaboration reached beyond their own walls and found the team engaging very
closely with academia – being situated in a Stanford Research Park – through
joint projects, seminars and informal conversations. However, this
collaborative spirit at times harmed the lab, such as when a burgeoning Apple
Computers was able to tour and steal many of PARC’s best ideas. The culture and
environment of PARC likely also had something to do with its success. Beanbag
chairs, games and a generally relaxed attitude to working gave employees the
comfort and freedom they needed to think creatively. Only by situating PARC
thousands of miles from Xerox headquarters in New York was Taylor’s team able
to get away with this novel approach to business. However, the distance may
have ultimately been PARC’s undoing, as it also served to make it very
difficult for Xerox management to see the value of PARC’s inventions and
provide support.
Google[x]
Google X is the internet giant’s
top-secret research facility that has only come to be known in recent years.
Situated in a pair of non-descript, two-story brick buildings only a half-mile
from the Googleplex, the group, headed by founder Sergey Brin, has the goal of
tackling the most wicked problems in the world in hopes of generating
out-of-this world breakthroughs such as Google Glass, driverless cars, diabetic
smart contact lenses, and space elevators.
While little is still known about X, the
group has the very ostentatious goal of disrupting complacency in the
technological world by doing mind blowing research - “moonshots” - intended to
improve the state of affairs by leaps and bounds. By pushing employees to
engage with radical challenges that deliver near certainty of failure,
individuals are forced to restart their thinking about problems instead of
simply building on the status quo. Moreover, by knowing that you are working on the most insane, cutting-edge
projects in the world, a certain prestige and motivation guides your efforts. X
is kept secret not simply for IP concerns, but also to give those within the
team the understanding that what they are doing is truly remarkable and must be
insulated from the real world.
Common Threads
These four labs by no means hold the patent
on breakthrough work, however, they have passed the torch as some of the most
innovative organizations of the past century. Looking across these labs, we
unquestionably notice differences in how they operate. However, common themes
begin to emerge that seem to shine a light on the culture of breakthroughs:
- Committed, visionary leaders
- Passionate, ideologically driven individuals
- Multidisciplinary, collaborative teams
- Autonomy & isolation in operation
- Lack of focus on business realities
- Willingness to fail, but at least try
- Surrounded by impossible challenges
Many of these points are core tenants
of Design Thinking, however, it is still important to remind ourselves of their
value and to look back to see their power in action. These approaches to
innovation are what produced the most important pieces of technology of the
past 150 years and yet only a handful of organizations have been able to
replicate such environments. While designing the next innovation factory may be
a daunting task, at bare minimum, organizations and teams attempting to center
themselves around the ideals of innovation should look closely at their
predecessors and pay close heed to the common themes identified above.
