How to Generate Ideas & Execute Them
Learning from Edison’s Creativity & Execution
Edison’s greatest invention wasn’t the light bulb.
First built in 1876, Edison’s laboratory, Menlo Park, as a whole was cranking out 1 patent every 4 days. And these are inventions we still use today.
- Movies
- Phonograph
- Practical Light Bulb
But none of those inventions ever came close to the ingenuity of Menlo Park.
Menlo Park: An Innovative Pressure Cooker
Creating one invention is amazing, but to do it 1,093 times is something else.
Each invention shattered reality and broke the minds of everyone around Menlo Park.
For example, in 1877 the phonograph was created, and people thought Edison was resurrecting the dead.
You can’t blame them. Before 1877, human sound had never been recorded before. To hear the voice of a dead person or even a song from someone in a different city was mind blowing back then. It’s like if we resurrected a dead person & could speak with them as if they were alive.
Edison became America’s 1st true tech celebrity.
What made Menlo Park so dang Creative?
Edison led Menlo Park with 1 Important Mindset: don’t look for problems in need for solutions, instead look for solutions in need of modification.
It’s harder to invent something no one’s seen before (Tesla was built different). Wayy easier to improve what already exists. For example, the Electric Light already existed, Edison and his team just improved the design and made it practical. Edison and his team hunted for solutions in need of modifications.
Edison’s creative habits were strange.
He’d sleep a max of 4 hours a night. When he’d nap, he’d hold 2 balls in each hand. As he fell asleep, the balls would drop to the floor and wake up.
This allowed him to remember thoughts before deep sleep.
Studies reports that we have a brief period of creativity and insight in the semi-lucid state before we begin to drift into sleep, a sleep phase called N1, or nonrapid-eye-movement sleep stage 1. The findings suggest if we harness the haze between sleep and wakefulness (hypnagogic state) — we might recall our bright ideas more easily, but I wouldn’t recommend it. What works for Edison may not work for you.
And most stop here. They think coming up with the idea is the hardest part.
They’re wrong. It’s execution.
Edison’s Idea Execution Method: Marketing Electric Light
In a 1995 CBS interview, Steve Jobs explained the disease that almost killed Apple.
John Sculley got a very serious disease. And that disease — I’ve seen other people get it, too — it’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90 percent of the work, and that if you just tell all these other people, here’s this great idea, then of course they can go off and make it happen. And the problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship between a great idea and a great product. (CBS)
Ideas aren’t enough. You need the vision to see it from napkin sketch to finished product in someone’s hand. And Edison understood this when he wanted to sell the 1st Practical Electric Light bulb.
Edison’s Marketing Strategy for Electric Light was 3-stages:
- Low Disruption of Regular Life.
- Have Public Demonstrations.
- Pick the Best 1st Customer.
Low Disruption of Regular Life:
Everyone used gas lamps and the industry was powerful.
To ensure easy adoption of electric light, Edison designed his electric lights to look and operate like gas lamps. He ran electrical wires through existing gas lines. These two factors fit electric lights into a delivery system people already understood.
Reducing the friction to adoption makes new ideas easier to accept.
Have Public Demonstrations:
Don’t say electric lights last longer than gas lamps, show them.
Edison lit lower Manhattan with his electric lights. When night fell, the usual gas lamps turned off. But Edison’s lights remained bright. On top of that, the lights could be seen from New Jersey across the harbor.
Don’t tell your customers how your product will impact them.
Show them the experience.
Pick the Best 1st Customer:
Edison hits a double whammy with this move.
He lit the lower Manhattan district for a reason. It was where the financial institutions were. The hope was for the people who control the money supply to see how useful it is and invest in him.
And it totally worked.
The financial community was seen as a credible source of innovative new products. And Edison helped meet the reference requirements of the early majority, who then shared the idea with their local communities. This endorsement of electric power and light, as demonstrated by a credible (and influential) reference in a visible location, had tremendous influence on the rest of the country.
Customers make or break your business.
Choose your first ones well.
The more work you do ahead of time to reduce.
- Perceived Risk (both physical and financial)
- Disruption of Life
- Friction to use.
And provide credible references,
the faster product adoption occurs.
