Inside Real Innovation: Follow The Innovation, Not The Company

Inside Real Innovation is a book that tries to show “how fundamental innovators really work” and looks at “explaining why the “innovation system” in the United States is failing to work as it once did, and what all parties can do to build a better system for the future”. Guest contributor Fabian Lua sent us this interview he did with Eugene A. Fitzgerald, co-author of Inside Real Innovation.

In this interview, he talks about limitations people set for themselves, the pigeonhole phenomenon, the difference between incremental innovation and fundamental innovation, how he knows Singapore well but is not here to tell Singapore what to do, and how the book is essentially particularly critical of the US.

Apart from being an author, Eugene is also the Merton C. Flemings SMA Professor of Materials Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Visiting Professor of Management in the Johnsons School, Cornell University, and Fellow in the Singapore-MIT Alliance.

Fabian takes us through his interview with Eugene:

Fabian: The general perception seems to be that different skill sets are required for finding success as an inventor versus an entrepreneur. What do you think about that?

Eugene: I have had the experience of being in many different environments, ranging from large corporations, universities to small start-ups in various fields. In start-ups, at the beginning you have to run everything – I hated accounting but I had to do it.

People would always try to pigeonhole you – some investors would say, “professors can’t run companies.” If you are a researcher bringing your idea to the market yourself, you just have to get used to that.

I believe most people can develop more skill sets but they limit themselves. It is pretty common for people to self-limit, but we should be actively teaching them how to remove these limits and extend their skill sets constantly.

Even when the experiences don’t appear to relate to each other, the skills, reputation and communities you gain from one field would usually help you in some way in the future.

Fabian: Which inventor/entrepreneur do you admire?

Eugene: Edison. I am fascinated by how people extended their skill sets and to know Edison as the guy who invented the light bulb is just a ridiculous reduction. Edison was an inventor, entrepreneur and general business bad boy. He disrupted markets where incumbents were too tied up in the status quo to innovate. He vertically integrated the industry, creating electrical distribution in order to sell the light bulb. He was also a visionary manager and hired the right people (like physicists) before others realized that would be useful.

Fabian: The title “Inside Real Innovation” implies some innovations are fundamental while others are not. What is real innovation to you?

Eugene: The big mistake today is that people can’t recognize the difference between incremental innovation and fundamental innovation. There are two lenses that you can see through to figure out if it is fundamental. One is time: if you can get an accurate recording of how long it took to commercialize, most fundamental innovations take a long time. The other is the degree of disruption – did the innovation change the structure of the industry or create an entirely new market segment? This is clear in hindsight.

Fabian: To move innovative ideas from R&D to market, the book proposes the right approach as having inter-disciplinary team members iterate between Technology, Market and Implementation. Do these team members have to start off with skills crossing disciplines?