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

2.5. Lesson 6: Working Bottom Up

Modern research and development operations, backed by major corporate money and staffed by academically trained scientists and engineers, characteristically approach the business of innovation and invention from the top down. That is, they begin with people who have a strong background in academic principles and a thorough grasp of theory and assign to these persons the task of looking for practical applications for the theory and principles. Having identified the potential applications, the same people are further tasked with actually creating them. At its very best, this approach can save a great deal of time by shortcutting or entirely eliminating the process of trial and error. Moving from the top down may ...