How the future was created and will be too

At risk of turning into a Kurt Anderson fanboy, I wanted to point out the recent segment on Bell Labs.

No new news there. But still...Our world was created at Bell Labs. (What is it about New Jersey, anyway?)

In any case, although perhaps past its prime, Bell Labs is fascinating (and well worth further investigation from those of us paid to generate ideas and create possiblities) as a case study in how to create an environment of trust and creativity.

Unlike Microsoft, these were guys who used their monopoly well to invest in pure research that transformed the world (OK, unfair, Microsoft has transformed the world, just not as elegantly as I would like) without having to worry about how it affected their quarterly P&L.

Some things I took away from the segment:

1. Open collaboration works.  Put enough smart people into a safe space where failure is encouraged and rewarded and you will be rewarded. Use this as a case study the next time someone says that creativity is a solitary act. Yes, people still say that.
2. Diversity breeds innovation. Diversity goes beyond racial/ethnic diversity (although that helps too). Mix up disciplines, get ceramicists working on semiconductor problems.  Planners don't need to call their ad the 'bad ad' anymore.  Creative really isn't just a department, although far too often it is and good ideas can only come from there. Except they don't always. So pay attention to the media guy. Invite software developers into the process at the beginning.
3. Create chance encounters.  The segment demonstrates how the value of people being invited to meetings that are on the face of them irrelevant to their core competence.  No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. (Albert Einstein, probably). Which leads to...
4. Design and architecture matter.  Space breeds or influences culture.  In the case of Bell Labs,  the lunch room became the petri dish for ideas and collaboration. Think about how the space in which you work affects behavior and inspires chance encounters.
5. Eliminate red tape. Hard to do in the era of Sarbanes-Oxley etc, but this fact makes the suits even more important than ever.  Just as good strategies clear a space in the mind, great business and client sense clear a space in the world for the miraculous.

It worked for Bell Labs...