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

5.11. Lesson 43: Don't Stop Experimenting

For the pure scientist, experimentation is a passion born of curiosity. For Edison the inventor, it was at least as much a matter of business as it was of passionate vocation. "The only way to keep ahead of the procession," Edison told his chief engineer, William Mason, early in the twentieth century, "is to experiment. If you don't, the other fellow will. When there's no experimenting there's no progress. Stop experimenting and you go backward."

And what if an experiment should fail? In that case, Edison advised experimenting some more "until you get to the very bottom of the trouble."

NOTE

The competitive business of innovation requires continual trial, an ongoing program of experimentation—both to ...