Delivered-To: dfarber+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 18:16:11 -0400
From: Claudio Gutiérrez <gutierrezclaudio@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: IBM Examines How Inventors Invent
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
On a bright, warm morning at IBM Corp.'s research center here, seven of Big
Blue's scientists gathered around a conference table to consider a
nonscientific
question: What helps inventors invent things?
IBM brass had asked the researchers to design a class that could teach lab
managers how to help inventors stay fresh and innovative. Quickly the group
erupted with ideas for the class's title, its methods, even whether someone
could fail it.
Then a boyish-looking operating system programmer, Michal Ostrowski, wondered
aloud if the group had made some false assumptions.
"Is it innovation if everyone can see that it is?" he asked, drawing a few
murmurs of agreement. "Innovation is not obvious at the time."
Such scientific soul-searching pervaded IBM's inaugural "Innovation Days," a
weeklong stretch in September when the technology giant asked 3,000
researchers
at eight labs around the world to take off their goggles and re-examine their
jobs.
IBM let The Associated Press observe several events, providing an inside
look at
a conundrum facing many technology companies: how to keep their researchers
creative while also demanding they produce short-term results on targeted
projects.
The brainstorming sessions about nurturing creativity were just part of
Innovation Days.
Individual labs - three in the United States and ones in India, Israel,
Switzerland, China and Japan - also created their own programs aimed at
recharging everyone's batteries. Researchers practiced tai chi and yoga
together. Others ran in a five-kilometer race or played music.
Speakers gave pep talks about creativity - including a master chef, a NASA
astrophysicist, technology investor Esther Dyson, a newspaper cartoonist in
India and a fragrance chemist.
"Involve customers with labs more often," John Wright, business development
manager for International Fragrances and Flavors Inc., told a group at IBM's
Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights. "It's
time-consuming, and
only some customers want to do it, but it works."
Technology companies used to let scientists do pretty much whatever they
wanted,
comfortable knowing that eventually, they would come up with something that
would bring the company patents, products or prestige. That freedom helped
scientists at Bell Laboratories, IBM and other companies win Nobel Prizes.
But sometimes researchers strayed too far from the company's objectives, with
disastrous results. In perhaps the most notable example, Xerox Corp. failed to
capitalize on the computer mouse, the graphical interface and other major
elements of computing that were invented at its Palo Alto Research Center.
Those freewheeling days are fading fast, largely because competition in
technology has intensified. Labs must generate more breakthroughs that will
quickly lead to new products in their companies' core lines of business.
Hossein Eslambolchi said that when he took over AT&T Labs in 2001, 80
percent of
its efforts were long-term projects with goals a decade off. Only 20
percent was
"direct research" with payoffs 12 to 18 months out. Now, he said, the
ratios are
reversed.
Shortly after taking over Hewlett-Packard Co. in 1999, Carly Fiorina ordered
researchers to get more aggressive about filing patents, with bonuses of
nearly
$2,000 for employees who win them. Fiorina sought to broaden HP's royalties
portfolio and support its new marketing slogan: "invent."
IBM boasts that it has gone even further in retooling its labs, as part of the
company's shift into technology consulting and services. IBM researchers
regularly meet with customers and IBM business units and even do some
consulting.
IBM's senior vice president for research, Paul Horn, said in an interview in
July that by comparison, rival labs were "building a bankrupt model."
But Horn concedes the pendulum might have swung too far. Perhaps with too many
restrictions and time commitments, it's hard for IBM's geniuses to feel
free and
daring.
"We wanted to make sure that as part of the cultural change, we weren't
becoming
too focused on short-term results, and we still maintained an atmosphere of
innovation," Horn said after Innovation Days.
Although Innovation Days was new to IBM, parts of it were not so
innovative. IBM
and other companies frequently bring in outside speakers to inspire technology
ideas.
Last winter, Microsoft staged an internal "TechFest" in which researchers
showed
off projects to one another. In the spring, HP held its first "TechCon,"
inviting researchers and developers to a Colorado resort to discuss their work
and hear motivational talks.
Intel Corp.'s chief technology officer, Pat Gelsinger, said the chip giant
goes
"out of our way" to expose its researchers to academics.
"When you get the process technology guy listening to the robotics guy,
they get
very bizarre, interesting conversations, but they find cross-disciplinary
relationships that create new opportunity," Gelsinger said.
Innovation Days grew out of a pilot session last spring at IBM's Almaden
Research Center in San Jose, Calif. After that self-examination, Almaden
scientists arranged a special fund for long-term projects that fail to win
immediate support from the bean counters who dole out IBM's $5 billion budget
for research, development and engineering.
They also called for meeting-free days so they could have fewer distractions,
and open office hours, like college professors, so colleagues would bounce
ideas
off each other.
During Innovation Days, some people suggested days without e-mail. That would
encourage more of the direct collaboration of years past, when researchers
would
walk down the hallway and sketch out ideas on a colleague's white board, said
Samer Takriti, a senior manager in mathematics.
In Haifa, Israel, IBM researchers suggested that everyone be encouraged to
occasionally break lunchtime routines and sit randomly in the cafeteria, so
people from different departments would eat together and discuss their
projects,
said Gal Ashour, technical assistant to IBM's Haifa lab director.
Pressed for time, many researchers groaned when IBM first announced Innovation
Days. And some lectures were sparsely attended.
Still, many participants said they were pleased. Jim Wynne, an IBM laser
researcher who codeveloped the process used in LASIK eye surgery, said one
lecture inspired him to dust off some work he did a while back. Now he
hopes to
patent it.
Wynne said Innovation Days "has a chance to change the culture." But he added:
"Whether the concepts that come out of this get put into practice - or
it's just
a one-week refresher course on inventing - remains to be seen."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9430-2003Sep27.html