Journal #4 by Zhang Hao

In Jon Gartner’s article (Feb. 25, 2012) “True Innovation,” he states the innovative process at Bell Labs and Mervin Kelly’s philosophy of innovation. Bell Labs made a great achievement in history. Mervin Kelly’s approach of innovation includes being architectural, being aspirational, freedom, trust people to create and give researchers enough time. At last, the author talks about how to accomplish innovation actually.

There is no doubt that innovation is significant for development of a business. Nowadays many technology companies benefit from innovation and get great success such as Apple and Microsoft. However, every company has to face the competition of market. For them, the most significant problem to be solved is how to provide good product or service to satisfy their consumers at a low cost and in less time. It depends on strict management and the control of quality. For a living creature, the nature of hereditary is much more important than evolution. This is because evolution is merely on good direction and the nature of hereditary can help it to get the benefit of ancients and avoid high risks. For a company, freedom is good but everything must operate according to regulation, trust works is important but supervising is more unless everyone works hard consciously, time should be enough but should not be wasted. Innovation can certainly help to make products better and cost lower but it needs more focus on management and control to ensure that. Although Apple Inc. spares lots of energy on innovation to improve its cellphones, manager must control the process of development according to schedule to make sure that the product could be published on time. Bell Labs has the luxury of serving a parent organization that had a large income and has many great geniuses. As a result, approach of freedom and time unlimited fits Bell Labs. But efficiency is more crucial for a general company which desires to win the game of market competition.

PS: Happy Chinese New Year!