Being a docent at the Thomas Edison National Historical Site in West Orange, NJ has its benefits. I can go beyond the visitor ropes and get up close to the artifacts. One of my favorites is the plaster cast impressions of his hands-presumably taken at his death. Most people might be surprised at how smooth these hands appear-many might expect the rough-hewn hands of a master mechanic or machinist, the penultimate lab worker. Not so.
To understand Edison, one must appreciate his methods. He spent considerable time conceiving and planning his work, before doing anything in the lab. He was not simply a trial and error man as many have tried to portray. Some very serious thinking, planning, and scheduling went into what he did. It was usually preceded by extensive literature searches, and a thorough understanding of what others were then engaged in. Many critics miss this. He could not have filled 4,000 notebooks if all he did was scurry around in his lab trying different combinations of things in a hit-or-miss fashion. The great inventor was so much more than this. In fact, during his incredibly creative life, Edison leaves more than 5 million written documents, sketches, drawings, and notes to give us a window into his thinking patterns and reasoning.
Edison spent hours at his desk at his Glenmont home, in his lab, or in the company library conceiving and researching ideas he would later have developed. His able craftsmen roughed out his envisioned prototypes and tested them; and later, he often "tinkered" these devices to perfection with his workers joining in. It was not unusual for him to have many projects progressing simultaneously; which he reviewed, and lent a direct hand in if he thought it was needed. As many as 40 projects might be in progress at any given time.
To be successful, Edison believed there was an organized way to perform research. This organizational invention may have been his greatest achievement. In Edison's world there was a preferred way to do things and his approach to R&D was no exception. Edison felt R&D should be done according to the following criteria:
My point here is to emphasize how much there was a thinking aspect to Edison's work. He devoted time to think, plan, and organize his projects, and his project teams. He recognized the value of a good project team leader, not only an incredible inventor, but a judge of character and capability. In Edison we see the emergence of the modern day research project manager. Edison's greatest invention was the codification of the commercial R&D process.
Today, over $500 billion a year is spent on American R&D; a total of expenditures in private, public, and academic sectors. Over 60% of our nation's annual economic growth is directly attributable to scientific and technological advances. This is an Edison legacy we realize every day. Pick up any text on managing technological R&D and one can trace the roots of that book back to Edison's labs at Menlo Park and West Orange. His ideas about how to organize project teams and expertise, and best motivate research, are as vital today as they were 125 years ago.
Having worked as a research project manager in PSE&G's R&D department for virtually all of my 36-year engineering career, I was often struck by how people viewed R&D as a very risky business. I eventually developed my own definition of R&D.... it is the process that converts technological uncertainty into risk.... just like due diligence is the process that converts business uncertainty into risk.
Did I mention I became an engineer and inventor because of Edison? He was my boyhood hero....but that is another story. Remind me to tell you.
Talk to you again soon...
Harry