Although she never went to school beyond fifth grade, she was industrious and helped her parents with their family business. Eventually, she grew and married a young man who was also of Italian heritage, and they in turn had several children of their own. One of their boys grew and eventually married, and he in turn had a son … and that was me (with the uncommon middle name of Carmen).
Thanks, Grandma, for being a brave little girl and coming home to a foreign land.
Part Two
Invention and Innovation
Uncovering Hidden Solutions;
Creating New Value
Ten Myths of Innovation
There are a lot of myths about innovation. And not a single one involves chocolate. On the contrary, perhaps one of the most satisfying suggestions about being innovative is to have a chocolate bar in your pocket. There’s concrete evidence that doing so had a huge impact on harnessing new technology into a product that had global impact. And we can thank American physicist Percy Spencer for the sweet lesson.
Percy was born in 1894 and had a difficult beginning as a child. When he was a baby, his father died, so his mother sent him to live with his aunt and uncle. Then when Percy was just seven, his uncle died. At the age of 12, Percy quit grammar school and began working 12-hour days in a local mill to support his aunt and himself. And that was the end of his formal education.
When he turned 18, Percy joined the Navy. While on night watch duty, he began reading whatever books he could find on the topic of wireless communications. He kept reading and taught himself calculus, chemistry, physics, and metallurgy.
After leaving the Navy, he went to work in 1939 for Raytheon. It was there, in 1945, that Percy and his chocolate bar made a discovery that changed the world. While he was working on a device called a magnetron, which generates short-wave radio waves, Percy noticed the chocolate bar in his pocket melted whenever he stood in front of the equipment. He had no idea what caused this, but soon discovered that it was due to microwaves. So he began modifying the equipment and, after several alterations, he built the first microwave oven.
So, chocolate is not only high in antioxidants and a cancer-fighting food, but it’s also fundamental to technology commercialization. I like it even more. It certainly worked for Percy, who went on to receive 300 patents and numerous awards. All this was accomplished without a formal education, but with a curious mind, a desire to self-educate, and a chocolate bar.
So, take a bite of your chocolate bar and consider these myths about innovation.
Geniuses work alone.
The world is full of solo inventors, but it’s difficult to take technology to market by working alone in a basement or garage. Collaboration, teamwork, and feedback are often invaluable in creating something remarkable. Even if the initial idea originated from a visionary genius, having others contribute is essential to bringing a more evolved product to fruition. Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, and Alexander Graham Bell were all geniuses, and they worked alongside others.
Innovation happens somewhere else.
For whatever reason, human nature often inclines people to think that great ideas or inventions happen “somewhere else.” The reality is that inspiration for the idea—and the blood, sweat, and tears to bring the idea to life—can and does happen everywhere from A to Z. The Saturn V rocket was designed and built in Alabama, and the steamboat was invented in West Virginia.
Innovation happens in a flash of inspiration.
Great ideas often happen in a flash, but execution doesn’t. Albert Einstein wrote in his Autobiographical Notes that when he was 16 years old, he wondered what a light waveform would look like if he could observe a beam of light while traveling at the same speed. That thought experiment played a memorable role in his future and the development of the theory of relativity. While an idea or inspiration might come quickly, as it did for young Albert, the final solution (or product) typically takes significant effort and time to fully develop. The first wheels turned pottery in 3500 BCE and weren’t used on chariots for three centuries. And monks were flying gliders a thousand years before the Wright Brothers’ first flights.
Only large companies with vast resources can innovate.
Actually, often it seems big companies are the least likely to innovate. Blockbuster Video could have come up with a better means of distributing DVDs (like startups Netflix and Redbox), but instead the company at its peak went from over 84,000 employees and 9,000 stores to bankruptcy. Or why didn’t an internet company of Google’s size and brainpower put several engineers on a project to create a text messaging-based platform like Twitter. Or consider the once dominant Kodak and its lack of innovation in digital cameras. The list of big companies that failed to innovate goes on and on.
You need to be educated by a prestigious university.
Percy Spencer did not have an auspicious beginning or a formal education—yet he was a great innovator. Benjamin Franklin was the son of a candlemaker and had only two years of formal schooling, but he was ambitious, worked hard, was resourceful, and was a great American inventor, scientist, and statesman. Ralph Lauren dropped out of college and never went to fashion school—yet his designs are considered iconic and his business savvy established him as one of the wealthiest people in America. Thomas Edison had three months of formal schooling, and attained over 1,500 patents and founded 14 companies, including General Electric. Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates all dropped out of college. This by no means is an argument against education at a premier university, but rather a simple reminder that education can happen everywhere. “What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.”
—Aristotle
Your history indicates your future success.
The world is full of countless examples of people who continued to invent and innovate, despite their earlier failures, until they succeeded. It’s actually difficult to find successful innovators who didn’t repeatedly fail.
You can’t “turn on” innovative thinking.
Actually, to a large extent you can “turn on” creative thinking, and many people and organizations do exactly that. Bell Labs, Palo Alto Research Center, IDEO, Google, Nike, Apple and thousands more work at being creative and then work even harder to make ideas a reality.
Set aside your emotions to innovate.
Emotions are integral to humans and should be utilized in a manner that assists with creativity. Emotions can be increased through music or movement or visual imagery (real or imagined). Find what works best for you, and bring a measure of emotion to your work.
A stimulating environment will stimulate thinking.
Actually, wherever you can think freely and deeply is the best place to innovate. You don’t need a pinball machine or a room full of beanbags nearby. Simply going for a walk or brainstorming with a few colleagues is sufficient inspiration. You might just need to be inspired. J. K. Rowling came up with the idea for Harry Potter while riding on a noisy, four-hour, train ride.
The best innovations are new creations.
On the contrary, some of the greatest inventions ever are those that combine things that haven’t been combined before. Combine a steam engine with steel wheels and you’ve created a locomotive train. Mix a telephone with a printer and you’ve got a fax machine. Marry a wireless communications system with a computer and you’ve got a smartphone.
So, take another bite of chocolate and get started!
A Billion Hours of Accidental Love
Albert Einstein supposedly said, “You can’t blame gravity for falling in love.” What he actually wrote (originally in German) was that “Falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do—but gravitation cannot be held responsible for that.”19
But Richard and Betty James certainly can blame gravity for their success.
It was 1943, and Richard was an engineer solving a problem for the US Navy. He was trying to isolate sensitive electronic equipment from the continual motion caused by rough seas. He thought the
equipment could be suspended by springs.
He tried hundreds of different springs, and they cluttered his desk. At some point, one of the springs accidently slipped off his worktable, and fell onto the ship’s deck where it landed on its end. It took a bounce, flipped onto its other end, and continued to move even farther away. Richard had work to do, and dropping things was annoying. But, at the same time, it was also funny to see that coiled spring saunter along.
He took it home to demonstrate it to his kids. His young son put it on top of the stairs and watched in amazement as the front of the coiled spring stretched to the step below, then began to seemingly walk itself down the stairs. His boy laughed hilariously. Soon other neighborhood kids were crowding around the stairs in his home.
Richard thought he might have a hit on his hand. He told his wife, Betty, “I think if I got the right property of steel and the right tension, I could make it walk!”
Richard kept his day job, and over the next couple of years their house filled with coiled springs of every conceivable dimension. He found a flat ribbon wire worked best, and settled on a ribbon 75 feet long, coiled 98 times.
They needed a name for their creation, and Betty searched the dictionary for inspiration. She came up with the word “slinky.” That seemed to capture what the product did. They borrowed $500 and produced a quantity of 400 Slinkys.
People didn’t seem to want it. One storekeeper said, “This is the atomic age. Kids want big, bright, fancy things with lots of color and lights. An old, beat-up spring!? We couldn’t give that thing away. ”
But the James persisted. At Christmastime, they talked Gimbels department store into letting them set up a ramp in the toy department to demonstrate the Slinky walking down the incline. They took 100 toys to the store and priced each one at $1.
Kids loved it. All 100 sold. Richard ran to get the remaining 300 units. Although these weren’t even yet packaged, people were holding up their $1 bills and buying the Slinkys as fast as they could. Betty said later it was hard to find her husband in the crowd of kids. They sold out in 90 minutes. “We didn’t sleep that night,” they said.
Since that day, there’ve been over 350 million Slinkys sold. They now come in a variety of sizes. There are even multicolored Slinkys made from plastic, and, of course, the Slinky Dog, the dachshund from the animated film Toy Story.
Richard left the country in 1960 and joined a religious group in Bolivia. Betty ran the Slinky company as president from 1960 until 1998 when she sold the company for a “boatload of money.” She died in 2008 at the age of 90.
Throughout her time, Betty always believed in keeping the price of the Slinky affordable. She wanted people to be able to afford the toy. She wanted kids to be able to play. “So many children can’t have expensive toys, and I feel a real obligation to them. I’m appalled when I go Christmas shopping and $60 to $80 for a toy is nothing.”
Everyone who’s ever played with a Slinky has gravity to thank for causing that coiled spring to fall off Richard’s desk and walk (down the steps) into our lives.
When Einstein remarked that gravity was not responsible for people falling in love—he was talking about falling in love with other people. But, gravity is responsible for people falling in love with Slinky.
Get a Slinky. Play with gravity. Fall in love.
Disastrous Problem + Resounding Failure = World-Changing Success
It’s a true story with multiple deaths caused mostly by a lack of experience. The story begins in one of the worst snowstorms to hit the Midwest.
Disastrous Problem
It was February 1934. The Evening Independent newspaper from Massillon, Ohio, ran the headline, “Worst Blizzard In Years Sweeps Northeastern Seaboard Region,” and noted, “Snow ranging from six inches to one foot in depth blanketed New York City as the east suffered its worst winter weather in years.”20
But all the young Army Air Corps pilot knew, while flying alone that day, was that he was trapped in a complete whiteout. After the navigational radio failed in his cockpit, and with zero visibility, he unknowingly had flown 50 miles off course. With few options, he made the decision to bail out of his plane into the biting, freezing wind. Immediately, his parachute became entangled on the plane he was trying to escape, and the young pilot was killed when his plane crashed outside a small Ohio town.
Later that same day, another Army Air Corps pilot was killed when he attempted a forced landing in Texas.
And the next day there was another Army Air Corps crash, which resulted in yet another death.
And it didn’t end there. Within just a few weeks, there were more Army Air Corps plane crashes that resulted in the fatalities of 13 airmen.
The US Army Air Corps had undertaken all these flights with the simple purpose of delivering the US mail. The decision for the US Army Air Corps to carry the mail was made as a result of a congressional investigation, where it was learned that the mail routes, previously flown by large airlines, had been awarded in a manner that prevented smaller carriers from competing. So President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration decided to have the US Army Air Corps fly the mail until the contracts could be fairly assigned.
But, the US Army Air Corps pilots were inexperienced with flying in inclement weather. In fact, their training did not provide the pilots with any means to accurately simulate the experience of flying in limited visibility, flying with failed electronic navigational equipment, or flying in bad weather. The result was the string of US Army Air Corps crashes and deaths, which famous aviator Eddie Rickenbacker publicly referred to as “legalized murder.” 21
The US Army Air Corps needed to find an immediate and effective solution.
Resounding Failure
Edwin Link was a young inventor with a shy demeanor, who really wanted to fly. In 1920, Link put down what was then the sizable sum of $50 for his first flying lesson. Here’s what happened.
His flight instructor spent the time flying the plane doing loops and rolls and dives. It was thrilling and nauseating. It was also disappointing, as the pilot never let Edwin Link even touch the controls. Even as a student, Link realized it was not a good way to teach someone how to fly. And it was a realization that stuck.
Link’s desire to fly remained, and over several years, he eventually got his pilot’s license.
Edwin Link was a technician in his father’s business—the Link Piano and Organ Company. He was also an avid tinkerer and inventor. While working there, Link cobbled together some steel piping and wiring used to assemble the organs and built the first airplane used for advertising. The plane utilized lights on the lower wing surfaces and was capable of spelling out messages— such as “Endicott-Johnson Shoes”—to anyone looking up.
But his quest to improve how pilots learned to fly remained with Link. In the 1920s, he fabricated a small cockpit and built controls that used pneumatics borrowed from his dad’s organ factory to simulate the experience of flying. It was about the size of a desk and looked like a toy plane with short little stubby appendages for wings. Organ bellows would inflate or deflate, and cause the “plane” to bank, climb, or dive.
He called it the Link Trainer. When instruments began to be introduced, Link added them to his trainer, so pilots could practice using that equipment. Surely, he thought, the Link Trainer would transform the traditional (and expensive) way in which pilots were trained. He founded the Link Aeronautical Corporation in 1929 and pitched his invention to countless flight schools all across the country. None were interested. In fact, his only customers were amusement parks, which used the Link Trainer as a coin-operated carnival ride for kids.
World-Changing Success
Given the US Army Air Corps plane crashes and the airmen’s deaths during the spring of 1934 when delivering mail, the brass needed to find a solution to their pilot’s inexperience. Someone in the Air Corps had heard about the Link Trainer, and Edwin Link was asked to fly from his home in Cortland, New York, and provide a demonstration at the Newar
k airport, where the officials waited.
Only there was a problem. There was a rainstorm the day the Air Corps commanders requested Link to fly to Newark. Looking out into the thick fog at the airport, the officers made the decision to leave, because certainly nobody would be flying that day with zero visibility.
As they were departing, and with their backs to the runway, they heard the faint whine of an engine. Turning around, they watched Edwin Link emerge from the clouds just feet above the ground and touch down on the runway. Link had flown entirely “blind,” using only the plane’s instruments. After demonstrating the Link Trainer, the generals immediately ordered six units and the equipment was promptly put to use training Air Corps pilots.
Five years later, World War II began. In the following years, to meet the demands of training thousands of young pilots, over 10,000 Link Trainers were purchased. These trainers were credited with training more than half a million pilots.
Edwin Link invented one of the first electromechanical devices to simulate actual processes, and he revolutionized how training is done. His Link Trainer was the forerunner for the flight simulators used by NASA for the Apollo missions and all other flight simulators used around the world today.
Edwin Link remained an innovator and inventor all his life. In addition to his pioneering contributions with flight simulators, Link was an avid marine scientist and ocean engineer. He went on to pioneer submersibles and undersea habitats. Link was curious, bold, stubborn, and scrappy.
Unlike Edwin Link’s first flying lesson, where his instructor never let Link touch the controls, Link taught others by immediately putting the controls in the hands of the students. And he did so in a safe place (on the ground in a flight simulator), which allowed for repeated trial and error
Evolve or Die Page 7