February 2008
Intermediate to advanced
192 pages
4h 1m
English
Edison was a legendary workaholic, but he never let work interfere with reading two morning newspapers and three evening papers as well as devouring "all the principal magazines ... and most of the scientific publications."
In fact, reading the news was, for Edison, an important part of his work, a key phase of innovation. It is a mistake to think that innovation is all about predicting the future. Successful—profitable—innovation is about engaging the present, but doing so at its leading edge. "The news" is a combination of what has just happened and what is happening now. It is neither what has happened in the past nor what will happen in the future. Edison read the news in order to latch on to the leading edge ...