Deep in a dumpster lay two hundred years of patent lithographs that the US Patent Office discarded when they went digital. Out went the handwritten examiner notes and fine ink drawings on patents by Tesla, Edison, Bell, Goddard, Farnsworth and Carlton - masters of innovation who lived in far more challenging economic times.
We have shared with the world 140 of these original hand drawn lithographs in a book Drawing On Brilliance. Most have never been seen by the public before. Each holds the secret to innovation success - how to build products that will change the world.
Accelerating Innovation With Search
Think about this. There have been a mere 360 years between Galileo's discovery of the sun's turning on its axis and the first moon landing. Then less than 100 years between a time when the world's roads were made of dirt and the invention of the Internet. We are on a steep trajectory of success in solving global problems.
So drawing on the brilliance of the innovators who brought us this far,we can accelerate the rate at which we successfully build products that change the world. We see a great example of this when we study the success of controlled flight - success that eluded the likes of Galileo, DaVinci and hundreds who followed them. So what was it that two bicycle shop repairmen from Ohio named Wright did differently that would then serve to raise the standard of living around the globe? What approach did they take that centuries of geniuses before them did not?
Search! With no engineering degrees and limited financial resources they began a profoundly systematic search, (and without the benefit of the internet).
Dear Sirs (letter to The Smithsonian):
I am about to begin a systematic study of the subject in preparation for practical work which I expect to devote what time I can spare from regular business. I wish to obtain such papers as Smithsonian Institution has published on this subject, and if possible a list of other works in print in the English language. I am an enthusiast, but not a crank in the sense that I have some pet theories as to the proper construction of a flying machine.
I wish to avail myself of all that is already known and then if possible add my mite to help on the future worker who will attain success. I do not know the terms on which you send out your publications but if you will inform me of the cost I will remit the price.
Yours truly,
Wilbur Wright
Before building a single model they looked at centuries of prior art, dissecting the patterns of failure as carefully as the patterns of success as far back as Leonardo DaVinci. They used mapping, visualization, and had completed a painstaking analysis of as much available scientific information and technical intelligence as they could find.
How does starting with search ensure product success. By identifying the right problem to be solved, first! The problem with controlled flight was not weight and balance, like so many others had focused on. It was a pitch and yaw problem, something bicycle repairmen are experts at understanding.
Right Product, Wrong Customer?
A state of the art search is critical before any company enters into a new technology area. Results can provide a basis for making critical market decisions based on competitive intelligence. They will become a powerful navigation framework for any innovative product or process design and will keep development focused on the right customer.
When Chester Carlton, the inventor of the photocopy machine, spent years trying to sell his invention to large companies, but to no avail. But two small companies, the Batelle Memorial Institute and the Haloid Corporation (later to become the Xerox Corporation) eventually agreed to license the technology and manufacture the copier.
It then took Xerox 15 years before the first viable, user friendly model hit the market. And their challenges continued when the Arthur D. Little Consulting company report done for IBM advised that the Model 914 "had no future in the office copy market"
Yet in its first six months the Model 914 exceeded sales projections for the entire lifetime of the machine. The A.D. Little Report consultants had only done their research on mailroom managers and not the secretaries who became the primary customers.
Optimize and Monetize
Visionaries are by definition too early and with each passing, great idea they seem to only get more visionary. Most of Nikola Tesla's inventions were too early to be commercially successful in his lifetime. Yet many of them now form the basis of entire new industries and have helped create millions of jobs.
Is there a "Tesla" in your collection of innovations? Have you built a great product that is too early to be commercially viable? The true litmus test for commercial viability is when customers will actually buy the product and in some cases - even prepay for it.
Effective archiving allows a company to monetize that product development risk by legally safeguarding the IP until the market is ready to buy.
Or is there a brilliant process your company has perfected for your current industry that has an even more world changing impact when applied to another industry? Remember, Henry Ford repurposed a process from the meat-packing industry that allowed mass production of cars. And Yo-Yo Ma's cello bow measurement technique is now used to design every child's car seat in the world. Capturing this IP can foster even more of the cross-pollinating breakthroughs that have been the hallmark of product success.
Today's sophisticated workflows and collaborative environments make it imperative that creative work be legally safeguarded yet remain accessible to as a private archive. This will also serve to optimize the value of your R&D budget, potentially increasing your company's balance sheet and adding measurable asset value to any future M & A.
We are on the cusp of a third industrial revolution that will raise the global standard of living yet again. Today we have access to an unprecedented amount of resources and we're collaborating like never before. And yet there is no shortage of global problems that need to be solved.
So go build that product that will change the world, by drawing on brilliance.
