Libro de innovacion

Stories and Strategies of Radical Innovation

Breakthrough
Mark Stefik and Barbara Stefik

Breakthrough

Breakthrough
Stories and Strategies of Radical Innovation

Mark Stefik and Barbara Stefik

The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England

© 2004 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by anyelectronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please email special_sales@mitpress.mit .edu or write to Special Sales Department, The MIT Press, 5 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA02142. Set in Sabon by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stefik, Mark. Breakthrough : stories and strategies of radical innovation / Mark Stefik and Barbara Stefik. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-19514-3 (alk. paper) 1. Technological innovations. 2. Inventions.I. Stefik, Barbara. II. Title. T173.8.S745 608—dc22 2004 2004042642

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Dedicated to the many brilliant and creative people who have worked at the Palo Alto Research Center, for living a culture of innovation that inspired this book. With gratitude to George Pake, the founder of PARC, who passed away on March 4, 2004. Pake knew how to set direction with incentives and alsohow to encourage creativity by staying “out of the way.” He set an example for research leaders everywhere.

Contents

Preface ix Acknowledgments I

xi

Invention and Innovation 3 27

1 The Breakthrough Dilemmas

2 The Dance of the Two Questions 3 Invention: Seeing Differently 4 Innovation: The Long Road II Fostering Invention 5 Mentoring and Apprenticeship 85 47 69

6 The PreparedMind and the Aha! Moment 7 The Beginner’s Mind and Play 8 Walking in the Dark III Fostering Innovation 9 Innovative Research Groups 161 181 149 129

115

10 Obstacles to Radical Innovation 11 Cultures of Innovation 207

12 Innovation at the Crossroads Afterword 255 Notes 261 Bibliography 285 Index 291

231

Preface

Innovation is subtle, complex, and full of surprises. It depends onorganizational culture and practice as much as on individual brilliance. This book is for people who are interested in innovation and especially in breakthroughs. It explains how leading companies succeed repeatedly in inventing the future. Open innovation refers to strategies that companies use to acquire technologies from other companies and to market their own technologies. Open innovationmakes good economic sense. However, it is only half of the story. Nobody ever created a breakthrough with open innovation. Open invention refers to strategies for creating inventions and breakthroughs. The challenges of the new century require strategies for both open innovation and open invention. Without a culture of innovation that honors the pursuit of breakthroughs, the tendency is to optimizethe routine, to pursue incremental improvements, and to resist the truly innovative. This book is a road map to the ways of invention and innovation. It introduces the terminology and the practices of leading inventors, entrepreneurs, and managers in innovative organizations. Among its goals are to illuminate how innovation works and how breakthroughs are created. The chapters in part I introducetwo questions that must be answered for every successful innovation: What is possible? What is needed? The chapters in part II focus on invention and on the experiences of creative researchers and inventors at work. Without invention, there can be no innovation. These chapters address the following questions: Do all inventors work the same way? Do researchers work alone, or in teams? What makes...