Edison on Innovation

ALAN AXELROD is the author of numerous business and management books, including Eisenhower on Leadership and two BusinessWeek best sellers: Patton on Leadership and Elizabeth I, CEO. He is a popular speaker on leadership and has delivered speeches at venues as diverse as the Florida City and County Management Association in Orlando and the Excellence in Government Conference in Washington, D.C. He has been featured in Fortune, BusinessWeek, and Inc. and is a frequent guest on news programs.

“…an interesting take on creativity…” (Velocity, March 2008) "Axelrod's book, 'Edison on Inovation: 102 Lessons in Creativity and Beyond,' casts Edison as a potential mentor for Americans who could use more wattage in the innovation department. Edison's greatness may not be duplicatable. Even so, his methods are easier to adopt than those of say Einstein. That kind of brain power is tricky to emulate." --The Detroit News, March 2008"In Edison on Innovation, writer Alan Axelrod picks out 102 lessons from the way Edison operated, told through lovely anecdotes drawn from Edison's life, such as his obsession with collecting all manner of materials so that his staff would have anything readily at hand that their experiments might require. The lessons are well known to those who read about innovation but the storytelling makes them vivid. Mr. Axelrod also does his best to give them a special twist, such as 'be skeptical but never cynical' or 'plan for spontaneity.'"--GlobeandMail.com, April 23, 2008

• Preface. Introduction.Lesson 1: Stop Thinking and Act Like a Genius.1. Life Story of a Middle American.2. Getting Your Hands Dirty.Lesson 2: Experiment with Everything.Lesson 3: Become a Boy of the Nineteenth Century.Lesson 4: Knowing.Lesson 5: See It.Lesson 6: Working Bottom Up.Lesson 7: Do the Thing Itself.Lesson 8: Cut and Try.Lesson 9: Know Properties, Not Theories.Lesson 10: Understand Hands-On: Touch Everything.Lesson 11: Miss No Detail.Lesson 12: Know What’s Going on Inside.3. How to Use Everything.Lesson 13: Profi t from Disability.Lesson 14: Lose No Idea.Lesson 15: Be Exhaustive.Lesson 16: Appreciate Your Ignorance.Lesson 17: Sharpen Your Tools.Lesson 18: Embrace Problems.Lesson 19: Problems Are Directions.Lesson 20: The Limits of the Problem Approach.Lesson 21: Use Disaster.Lesson 22: “No Experiments Are Useless”.Lesson 23: Fertile Failure.Lesson 24: Make Defects Their Own Remedy.4. Investing.Lesson 25: The Ideal Executive.Lesson 26: Insure the Permanency of an Investment.Lesson 27: Invest in Assets.Lesson 28: Start Small, Scale Up.Lesson 29: Build an Invention Factory.Lesson 30: Support the Shop.Lesson 31: Build on the Weakest Points.Lesson 32: Become a Collector.5. Entrepreneurship.Lesson 33: Take a Reverse Inventory.Lesson 34: Identify Markets.Lesson 35: Defi ne Yourself.Lesson 36: Innovate Without Inventing.Lesson 37: Inspire Confidence.Lesson 38: Take the Credit.Lesson 39: Be Legendary.Lesson 40: Invent Systems.Lesson 41: Think Bigger.Lesson 42: Let Research Lead.Lesson 43: Don’t Stop Experimenting.Lesson 44: Invite Distraction.Lesson 45: Time It.Lesson 46: Imagine the Future.Lesson 47: Get Between.6. Creating Your Customers.Lesson 48: Get the News.Lesson 49: Give Praise to the Dissatisfi ed Customer.Lesson 50: Educate the Customer. Lesson 51: Learn the Market.Lesson 52: Niche Thinking: Find a Small Space to Make It Big.Lesson 53: Offer an Edge.Lesson 54: Move into a More Hospitable Environment.Lesson 55: Sell Innovation.Lesson 56: The Limits of Innovation.Lesson 57: Become a Brand.Lesson 58: No Such Thing as Overproduction.7. Making Rain.Lesson 59: Be Skeptical, Never Cynical.Lesson 60: Get the Biggest Picture.Lesson 61: Design What You Need.Lesson 62: Create New Uses for Whatever You Have.Lesson 63: “Guard Against Results”.Lesson 64: Exploit the Unexpected.8. Grinding It Out.Lesson 65: Learn a Lesson from The Temperate Life.Lesson 66: Know the Known.Lesson 67: Want Some Real Labor? Try Thinking.Lesson 68: “Genius Is 1 Percent Inspiration and 99 Percent Perspiration”.Lesson 69: Work the Problem.Lesson 70: Redesign.Lesson 71: Don’t Stop with Version 1.Lesson 72: The Two Masters.Lesson 73: Try a Kaleidoscopic Approach.Lesson 74: Exploit the Details.Lesson 75: Speed.Lesson 76: Plod.Lesson 77: Unlimited Incentive.Lesson 78: If At First You Do Succeed, Try Again Anyway.9. Managing.Lesson 79: Never Neglect Logistics.Lesson 80: “Mean to Succeed”.Lesson 81: Plan for Spontaneity.Lesson 82: Create a Shop.Lesson 83: Start a School.Lesson 84: Make Creativity a Predictable Process.Lesson 85: Create Standards.Lesson 86: Subdivide, Delegate, Empower.Lesson 87: Harvest Complaints.Lesson 88: Favor Fluid Structures.Lesson 89: Keep Score.10. Faking Genius.Lesson 90: Model It.Lesson 91: Get on the Train.Lesson 92: To Innovate, Imitate.Lesson 93: Do It Better.Lesson 94: Create by Analogy.Lesson 95: Make the Problem the Solution.Lesson 96: Analogy Again.Lesson 97: Another Problem, Another Solution.Lesson 98: New Wholes from Old Parts.Lesson 99: Better to Elaborate Than Replace?Lesson 100: Prefer Evolution to Revolution.Lesson 101: Make the New Familiar.Lesson 102: Work Beyond the Cutting Edge.Appendix One: An Edison Chronology.Appendix Two: Two Hundred Representative Patents.Appendix Three: Suggested Reading.The Author.Index.