Edison on Innovation: 102 Lessons in Creativity for Business and Beyond

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.