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

2.1. Lesson 2: Experiment with Everything

A number of entries in Thomas Edison's diary during the mid-1880s suggest that he was plagued by chronic indigestion. This drove him, one day, while headed to the office of the Edison Electric Light Company at 65 Fifth Avenue in New York City, to get off the streetcar at Broadway, far from his office door. "Tried experiment of walking two miles to our office," he recorded on July 13, 1885, "with idea it would alleviate my dyspeptic pains." The expedient, exercise, was hardly original as a remedy for indigestion, but what is significant in Edison's trial of it is the word—experiment—he used to describe what he was doing. Clearly, Edison viewed every attempted solution to every perceived problem—no matter ...