Over the past few decades, as this country's entrepreneurs have been rewarded with torrents of venture-capital money and the fruits of public offerings, monolithic research shops like Bell Labs have begun to recede from view. Small is now beautiful. And big is perhaps no longer necessary. For better or worse, corporate innovation has increasingly become an exercise in speed and scrappiness and practicality, rather than a diligent pursuit of pure knowledge.
When Kim took over the Labs in 2005, his overarching concern was not how to produce more ideas but how to capitalize on them. He decided that if Bell Labs was to survive, it had to be more aggressive and market driven. To that end, he set up two new groups. The first was what he termed Technology Integration--in effect, work for the parent company's business units. Some of these projects involve routine improvements on wireless or wireline equipment, but some are grand in their goals. For years, researchers have been considering the obstacles that stand in the way of a totally wireless nation. One is poor reception inside our homes or offices. Building more big telecom antennas isn't practical; they're expensive and already densely deployed. But extending the wireless network into homes and small businesses--by selling small, auto-configuring antennas--might solve the reception problem, especially if such antennas could route calls and data over existing Internet connections. With Kim's endorsement, what's currently known as a "femtocell" is being tested and should be on the market within a year or so.
Meanwhile, Kim has grouped the Labs' more audacious research efforts under what's now called Alcatel-Lucent Ventures, or ALV. By his estimation, Bell Labs' value is in its critical mass--a lot of researchers in close proximity, sharing insights and expertise. But he also points to two earlier Bell Labs inventions: "Remember, the transistor was invented by three people, not 30,000. The laser was invented by two."
ALV is essentially a venture-capital fund for scientists within the Labs--"intrapreneurs," as business theorists sometimes call them--whose ideas might have previously ended up as stranded assets because they were too far ahead of the curve or not relevant to Alcatel-Lucent's current customers. So far, Kim says he has considered about 150 proposals, routed to him through a semi-annual companywide "call for ideas." He has green-lighted fewer than 10. Each one, in his view, has the potential to recoup six times its initial investment and expand Alcatel-Lucent's reach into entirely new businesses. Once a proposal is accepted by Kim and Wim Sweldens, who runs the day-to-day venture business, a team--usually 15 to 50 people--gets a book-on-tape copy of Good to Great (Swelden is a fan of business guru Jim Collins) and is whisked into sequestered space.
These projects have been named, at Kim's direction, after the rivers of the world, since he believes innovative ideas start small, "like a stream." The first, originally named Evros (after the river in Greece), emerged from development this past fall. A small, battery-powered wireless card that's always on and has its own operating system and wireless capabilities, Evros plugs into any laptop. It is being marketed to corporations as a security tool. "I'll tell you what this device is, contrary to what our marketing people say this device is," Kim tells me. "The laptop is really a revolutionary idea, because it allows you to move around, and you're not tied to a desktop. But you have to pay a price. It gives you mobility, but it only allows for an architecture where you reach into the network. There's no way for the network to reach out to you." Evros enables companies to reach their workers (actually, their workers' laptops) at any time. If a laptop in the field is stolen or lost, a CIO thousands of miles away can lock it down and protect its data. This is what Alcatel-Lucent marketers perceive as its main selling point. Kim sees larger possibilities. If a CIO wants to install a software patch overnight, for instance, he or she can do that, too. And software developers could write applications for Evros that would allow laptops to download email faster from company networks, or automatically seek out content. Kim thinks the product is a worthwhile gamble. "It took Apple two years to sell 1 million iPods," he says, "and then it took off and became a platform. Can you sell 1 million Evros? Yeah, I think so."
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Recent Comments | 13 Total
February 15, 2008 at 2:20pm by Anand Sanwal
This article is pretty interesting and Jeong Kim who heads up the group is undoubtedly a great innovator. Some of Kim's interesting insights & actions as the head of Bell Labs include his use of a venture capital type approach to innovation as "Kim has grouped the Labs' more audacious research efforts under what's now called Alcatel-Lucent Ventures, or ALV."
This skunk-works for innovation makes a lot of sense. And several interesting ideas are emerging from these efforts which the article details.
But the article is prone to a few flights of hyperbole including Kim's theory on innovation which is described as a cube. Although calling it dimensions and visualizing it as a 3-D box sounds impressive, there is nothing particularly amazing about this. This is a framework that many management consultants have come up with and hawked to their clients or that strategic venture groups have come up with. It's a simple matter of setting up a x, y, and z axis and putting each dimension down and then plotting points to your heart's content. It's a slight variation on some long-held views of innovation and not innovative in of itself. The idea that innovation needs to be managed as a portfolio of options is spot on but again, nothing particularly earth-shattering about that. The framework is pretty standard stuff.
The second example of hype is Kim and his idea that you can quantify innovation in a mathematical formula. This sounds like a nice luxurious pursuit when you have a bunch of mathematicians on staff as you mention, but the portfolio view that a framework would offer is probably enough to help prioritize innovative opportunities. I see little to no prospect for a generally applicable mathematical formula for innovation coming to light, and I'm not sure this makes much sense to pursue. For innovation, the old adage that "it is better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong" seems to be pretty spot on. Management and innovation as science is inherently impossible no matter how interesting/alluring the prospect of this is. There is no way to say "Add this + this" and you'll have a great company or you'll have an innovation. I'm sure such a formula will result in a book which will sell thousands of copies because this type of mathematical elixir is what some are hoping for. But its value is dubious.
Regards,
Anand Sanwal
Author, Optimizing Corporate Portfolio Management
Investile Dysfunction blog - www.corporateportfoliomgmt.typepad.com
December 30, 2008 at 6:35pm by Michael Plishka
Interesting article though I tend to agree with Anand's comments. However, mathematics and models help give us insights into behaviors/phenomena even if they are only partially correct:
http://zenstorming.wordpress.com/2008/12/18/the-mathematics-of-innovatio...
Insights are always a good thing.
January 8, 2009 at 5:31pm by Will Meysing
I smiled as I read the article on the 12 most creative people of 2008. It was my reaction to reading about someone else who is proclaiming why others should join this secret club.
It is a group of members with invisible activities, rituals and club by-laws.
An idea – comes to mind – because of our biochemistry and neuron specialty centers – connecting together – into a triangulated structure that causes our cognitive function.
All we can do is attempt to create models (3-D Box) that are incomplete – inaccurate and un-functional – to share with each other as by-products of interpretation. It is what you cannot construct with models and/or math – that we so want to comprehend.
But a dog whistle can be heard by your pet but not by the human population. We cannot – as humans – be a member of that canine hearing club.
The same with talking about a 3-D Box and its mathematical formula for the creativity process. The attempt is flawed from the get-go because creativity does not need a terrestrial fulcrum – or gravity – or an up side and a down. It does not need any particular language or scientific rules based on our society. Like a duck decoy by the lake – it is an image of imitation – and if it tricks a live duck to interpret its reality as friends of a feather – the hunter gets a duck dinner. You need a model with math that encircles and creates focus on what we cannot yet comprehend – with formulas that regulate what rules of language, equation and graphic model (duck decoys) we can use because it is all up to the “real duck” and the universal codes of function whether such efforts – as proclaimed in this article – will ever amount to something applicable to sustaining our daily lives—like a tasty duck dinner.
William C. Meysing, President
Corporate Builders, Inc.
January 8, 2009 at 5:31pm by Will Meysing
I smiled as I read the article on the 12 most creative people of 2008. It was my reaction to reading about someone else who is proclaiming why others should join this secret club.
It is a group of members with invisible activities, rituals and club by-laws.
An idea – comes to mind – because of our biochemistry and neuron specialty centers – connecting together – into a triangulated structure that causes our cognitive function.
All we can do is attempt to create models (3-D Box) that are incomplete – inaccurate and un-functional – to share with each other as by-products of interpretation. It is what you cannot construct with models and/or math – that we so want to comprehend.
But a dog whistle can be heard by your pet but not by the human population. We cannot – as humans – be a member of that canine hearing club.
The same with talking about a 3-D Box and its mathematical formula for the creativity process. The attempt is flawed from the get-go because creativity does not need a terrestrial fulcrum – or gravity – or an up side and a down. It does not need any particular language or scientific rules based on our society. Like a duck decoy by the lake – it is an image of imitation – and if it tricks a live duck to interpret its reality as friends of a feather – the hunter gets a duck dinner. You need a model with math that encircles and creates focus on what we cannot yet comprehend – with formulas that regulate what rules of language, equation and graphic model (duck decoys) we can use because it is all up to the “real duck” and the universal codes of function whether such efforts – as proclaimed in this article – will ever amount to something applicable to sustaining our daily lives—like a tasty duck dinner.
William C. Meysing, President
Corporate Builders, Inc.
January 8, 2009 at 5:35pm by Will Meysing
I smiled as I read the article on the 12 most creative people of 2008. It was my reaction to reading about someone else who is proclaiming why others should join this secret club.
It is a group of members with invisible activities, rituals and club by-laws.
An idea – comes to mind – because of our biochemistry and neuron specialty centers – connecting together – into a triangulated structure that causes our cognitive function.
All we can do is attempt to create models (3-D Box) that are incomplete – inaccurate and un-functional – to share with each other as by-products of interpretation. It is what you cannot construct with models and/or math – that we so want to comprehend.
But a dog whistle can be heard by your pet but not by the human population. We cannot – as humans – be a member of that canine hearing club.
The same with talking about a 3-D Box and its mathematical formula for the creativity process. The attempt is flawed from the get-go because creativity does not need a terrestrial fulcrum – or gravity – or an up side and a down. It does not need any particular language or scientific rules based on our society. Like a duck decoy by the lake – it is an image of imitation – and if it tricks a live duck to interpret its reality as friends of a feather – the hunter gets a duck dinner. You need a model with math that encircles and creates focus on what we cannot yet comprehend – with formulas that regulate what rules of language, equation and graphic model (duck decoys) we can use because it is all up to the “real duck” and the universal codes of function whether such efforts – as proclaimed in this article – will ever amount to something applicable to sustaining our daily lives—like a tasty duck dinner.
William C. Meysing, President
Corporate Builders, Inc.
January 29, 2009 at 2:12am by Brad Arnold
I have trouble believing people like Kim who preach "innovation" because of the difficulty in approaching people with "non-consensis reality" concepts. For instance, there is a private company in California called Magnetic Power Inc (www.magneticpowerinc.com) that is developing a solid state power generator (wrap a solenoidal coil around a magnet-the magnetic gradient can be exploited for more energy than it takes to power the coil-MPI exceeded break even in 2004). Good luck trying to interest people in this silver bullet energy technology (I am not an agent nor associated with MPI, but am a global warming activist). How about a technology to convert CO2 from coal-fired power plants into fuel profitably (4th generation fuel production)? "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." --Albert Einstein. But: All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident. -- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). Innovation is entertaining and supporting "truth" before it is accepted as self-evident, but do you know how hard it is to find people who are interested in a truth until it is consensis reality? Frankly, I think many people pay lip service to "innovation," but really they just want to continue with the same old thinking and will reject any truth that isn't accepted as self-evident.