Psychology Matters: We're Salmon Swimming Upstream

In a recent interview, BIF Chief Catalyst Saul Kaplan -- who is also Director of Rhode Island's Economic Development Corp. -- was questioned fairly intensely about Rhode Island's economic development strategy. Why is it different from what others have said and done before, one reporter asked? Saul responded from many different angles but one in particular never gets much play and it seems to me it's one of the more important requirements of a successful strategy: Psychology matters, he said.

BusinessWeek published an article about IBM's radical innovation factory last month. Similar to P&G, they've jumped on the open innovation bandwagon and haven't looked back. The article talks about several innovation networks the company has established - one in particular relates to Saul's point on psychology:

"In the late 1990s, Kaloyeros [a 51-year-old physics professor at the State University of New York at Albany] and IBM's John Kelly [director of IBM Research] dreamed up a plan to make the Albany campus of the State University of New York a hotbed of semiconductor research. The pair relentlessly pursued their vision until they got the state and corporate funding they wanted. Now, 10 years and $4.2 billion later, Albany Nanotech boats a staff of 1,800 university and corporate scientists and is the most advanced university chip research complex in the world...For those who fought the funding wars, the forumula for success is simple: Share the risk and stick to the vision. 'John Kelly went back to IBM numerous times and said, 'this is going to happen.' He really stuck his neck out,' says Former New York Governor George Pataki."

For the past two years, we've hosted an annual Collaborative Innovation Summit which brings together innovators from all walks of life. (Our next one takes place on October 10th and 11th.) Everyone from famed oceanographer Bob Ballard to uber-inventor Dean Kamen to eco-architect Michael Singer has graced our stage. One of my personal favorite stories comes from Bob Ballard. He told us, if you're an innovator, accept that you're a salmon swimming upstream....

There are over one million ancient shipwrecks on our ocean floor. With an average ocean depth of 12,000 feet, Ballard says trying to find even one of these ships next to impossible. He spent years making ocean dives and as he put it: "It was like having a five- hour commute in a freezing elevator with no bathroom. If you were lucky, you could go one mile a day."

After hearing about a little thing called fiber optics, Ballard cooked up the idea of using telepresence within his submarine. He wanted to create a panoramic vision of the ocean, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week through a robot. But how to get it done? With no funding in place – I loved when he said NASA’s annual budget would support the NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) for 350 years – Ballard took matters into his own hands. “I had to figure out a way to get around these Luddites,” he said.

Innovators are opportunists who introduce new paradigms. It would simply take too long for Ballard to develop telepresence within the confines of the current funding paradigm. So he found a way to “steal” the smallest navy ship possible and outfitted it with the most advanced telecommunications technology. “They weren’t using it anymore,” he told us.

“It’s always hard to convince people to change,” said Ballard. “You have to accept you're the salmon swimming upstream.” The end run for Ballard was the opportunity to define an ocean exploration program. “Our mission was to go where no one had gone before on planet Earth. We didn’t have the foggiest idea what we were going discover. So we got a small enough ship - put a lot of stuff on it – which mean there was no room for the Luddites – and called ourselves the first ship of exploration.

According to Ballard, innovation happens when you "can't get done what you want to get done." [Does this sound like Clay Christensen or what?] Ballard's problem was that he was spending far too much time commuting. Today, his ship of exploration is not only fulfilling his dream of discovery but it's also feeding into our nation's schools - allowing students to see, in real-time, the very same feeds that Ballard and his team are studying. (For some very cool video - head to NOAA for a peak into the Celebes Sea.)

Stteadfast persistence and unyielding resolve are what it takes to be a paradigm-shifter. And it's the backbone of the Business Innovation Factory. As Saul Kaplan rightly pointed out: "Psychology matters. And confidence is key."

RELATED:

• Hear from a variety of paradigm-shifters at the BIF-3 Summit on October 10th and 11th. Learn how you can participate.