IBM asks scientists to take broad view of research

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. – 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.

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.

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.”

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.