The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices by Frank Moss

Author:Frank Moss [Moss, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-58912-5
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2011-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

FURTHER REFLECTIONS

Research programs, whether in university, government, or industrial labs, commonly fall into one of two categories: basic research or applied research. However, just like its researchers, the Media Lab’s approach to research defies this type of categorization. Actually, it incorporates characteristics of both while adding its own special sauce, and that is what makes it such a powerful engine for innovation in today’s world.

On the one hand, like basic research, it is driven almost entirely by the passion and curiosity of its researchers, whose goal is to increase the understanding of fundamental principles without the pressure to come up with immediate commercial applications. Also like basic research, it relies heavily on the process of serendipity to help ideas and discoveries find their way from the laboratory into practical use in the real world.

On the other hand, it has several things in common with applied research. It is informed by the needs and requirements of its corporate sponsors (although they do not direct it per se) and researchers build and iterate working prototypes that they test with real people in the real world. Also like applied research, the Media Lab’s approach is multi-disciplinary, while most basic research is focused on a single discipline.

The unique combination, as it is applied in the Lab’s open and transparent environment, is a significant “innovation in innovation.” One way to look at it is from the perspective of the Media Lab’s corporate sponsors. They are not partnering with the Lab to get solutions to specific problems handed to them on a silver platter, but rather as a long-term investment in payoffs that can be huge. For example, as you read in this chapter, a scientific inquiry into how babies learn their first words translated into a radical new way of designing retail spaces that adapt to customers and a tool for brand managers to gain real-time insights into the audience reaction to their TV ads. These types of innovations may have never have emerged in a timely fashion from either an applied or basic research environment, but happen regularly at the Media Lab.

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