Friends Matter and Other Innovation Lessons From the 18th Century

Christine Flanagan
March 30, 2009

Last month we launched the BIF Book Group with author and outside.in creator Steven Johnson's new book The Invention of Air. Our thanks go out to everyone who joined and participated. As the great conversations wind down and we begin looking at our next selection, I’m struck by a couple of common themes from the book which are as applicable today as they were in the late 18th century.

Friends Matter: Who are the modern day Honest Whigs?

In a forum with a few dozen members of the BIF community a couple of weeks ago, Johnson discussed his book The Invention of Air. [Watch the intro video here.] It’s the story of Enlightenment-era innovator Joseph Priestly and the emerging social networks that enabled his ideas to flourish.  Priestly was a British theologian and political theorist credited with discovering oxygen. He was also a protégé of Benjamin Franklin, friend of Thomas Jefferson and radical thinker who played key roles in the invention of ecosystem science, the founding of the Unitarian Church as well as the creation of the intellectual development of the United States.

Harkening back to the dawn of London's coffee house culture—a phenomena that fueled the ‘open source' information exchange that defined the Enlightenment's intellectual awakening—Johnson chronicled the outcomes of a convergence of time, place and cultural milieu that enabled Priestly to link his fervor for experimentation with new modes of networked learning and a rising tide of scientific patronage. And  it all began with a group known as The Honest Whigs.

There was a funny tweet I came across which said “Joseph Priestly has to be the sexiest man in history.” I would add that the Honest Whigs have to be the sexiest male group in history.

The Honest Whigs were a discussion club of pro-American liberal intellectuals who met regularly to enjoy coffee and discuss science, philosophy and political developments. They represented some of the leading thinkers of their time. Members included Benjamin Franklin, James Boswell and some twenty or so others.

Now I would argue that Joseph Priestly would never have achieved his level of success were it not for this group of intellectuals who willingly handed over their years of knowledge and experience to Priestly. By accepting the rural minister into their group and providing him with all their research, Priestly was able to make rapid connections which enabled him to make the discoveries he did.

I asked Steven Johnson about the importance of the Honest Whigs. Here’s what he had to say:

Tools Matter: Breakthrough Innovation Sometimes Requires the Tools to Catch Up With Our Dreams

I imagine part of the reason The Honest Whigs handed over their research to a relative newcomber is because they hit a roadblock in their own  activities. That's when fresh sets of eyes can make all the difference. Even so, as Steven rightly points out in his book, "as is so often the case in the history of science, an increase in the accuracy of measurement leads to a fundamental shift in the perception of the world." In Priestly's case, as his network of friends grew, his lab began to incorporate tools which he would then "hack" and creatively repurpose for his own needs.

I asked Steven what breakthroughs he thought we we're on the cusp of today. In his response, he talks about how our understanding of  the human brain has been used as a tool to create huge advances in a variety of disciplines like science and economics, and, how it will shape innovations in these areas:

Environments Matter: Systems-Level Innovation Doesn't Happen in Your Spare Time

In one of our book group forums, Thom Nealssohn posted a discussion related to his amazement at how much time Priestley had to experiment and ponder. "I particularly was struck by the concept of patrons who supported the work of men like Priestley - taking care of their physical needs to allow them to concentrate on discovery and experimentation," Thom wrote. Johnson himself makes the point several times in the book that free time to develop and experiment was a common denominator for many of the great thinkers of the age. Returning to Thom's point, he asked: "Is there a place in corporate research for unstructured free discovery? Has the academic demands of 'publish or perish' placed too much value on the conclusion of experimentation rather than the learnings that arise? Have we moved beyond the need for free time just to ponder?"

In my view, there are two types of systems-level innovation: one that takes place within existings systems and the other that creates entirely new systems. Priestly was a new systems-level innovator. And I would add that that's much easier than trying to innovate within a current system. Which unfortunately, is exactly where nearly all corporate R&D departments reside.

Here's Steven's take on this subject:

The More Things Change

An oft-quoted saying of mine comes by way of Elting Morrison, author of Men, Machines and Modern Times: “No intellectual heroism or psychic leap will take you from the development of the wheel immediately to the internal-combustion engine and the automobile.”

New systems are years in the making. What Priestly demonstrated is that experimentation matters. 21st century innovators are eager to say that our era of technological change is unheralded. Not true. There's much to learn and remember from history. Paradigm shifts are created on the blood, sweat and tears of generations of innovators before us.

Who are our modern day Joseph Priestly's? Our modern day Honest Whigs? And what is the next frontier of systems-level innovation? What say you?