Kamen introduced his presentation with the following disclaimer: “I don’t know what innovation is. It requires a lot of things including luck and the ability to fail regularly.” He proceeded to outline the following rude realities and offered some serious suggestions about the world of innovation.

People confuse innovation and invention. He showed an image of the Chinese south-pointing chariot built 1000 years ago. The two-wheeled cart with a mass of gears was pulled behind a horse across the featureless Gobi Dessert. The clever guy who built the device coordinated the gearing so a pointing device mounted on the top will always point the same direction regardless of which direction chariot goes. The compass predated the south-pointing chariot by one hundred years. Invention is a chariot. Innovation is a compass. Not every invention is innovation. Innovation changes the way we live, work deal with the world.

Rude Reality: Great technology rarely constitutes innovation. If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research. Innovation is often unpredictable. But you have to seek it to have any chance of finding it.

Rude Reality: If you’re going through hell, keep going. Every project falls behind schedule. When it does, try anything.  If it’s really a mess, get moving. Make sure you fall behind early. The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up. Think of every R&D project you’ve ever worked on. You’ll never know less than you do right now.  

Invent as a last resort. The world is full of technology. Inventors like to invent. Sometimes you have to invent something new. Systems integrators are usually faster and cheaper than building from scratch. Kamen, whose team redefined the concept of the insulin pump, was challenged to create aradically different product, without changing anything.  

Rude Reality: Solving the solution is often the problem. Most problems are designed into the product. We work at fixing the things we made. Citing his dialysis machine as an example, Kamen describes it as a large contraption that squeezes tubes to force fluid through a filtration system. The problem he was presented was to make better valves. This, he said, was the wrong problem. The fault was in the tubing which was never intended to be squeezed. The overall contraption was far too large and cumbersome to be practical. His team looked at the overall process and wondered why a smaller, more efficient unit could provide patients better therapy at home. The project took twice as long and doubles the budget.
 
Rude Reality: It’s not what we don’t know that inhibits innovation. It’s what you do know that just may not be true. But, knowledge is what gets in your way. You have to work through this.  Pain is mandatory. Suffering is optional. When we know what’s true, we count on it. But truth in technology is transient.
Telecommunications is best example of how truth changes. Things change. We don’t come down the unlearning curve fast enough.

Rude Reality: Innovation is not a spectator sport. It’s participatory. Projects require management. Innovation requires leadership. Bigger projects require more consistency. Management is the art of doing things right, consistently and predictably. You don’t want surgeon to say “I’ve got a great idea!” in the middle of the surgery. Leadership is responsible to direct innovation. Management is responsible for implementation.
 

Rude Reality: To err is human. Unfortunately, it’s not company policy. No one likes surprises. The consequence is no innovation. Perfectly managed systems are predictable, not innovative. We fight for the warm death of mediocrity. That’s a problem. Innovation is tough. Why do we do it? Because, it is fundamental to be creative. Unfortunately, we initiate innovation when we’re in panic…when we can’t afford to fail. That’s really bad timing.

We define success as lack of failure. But, there has to be room in management to permit failure. We have to being willing to embrace mistakes to create an effective environment for innovation. Kamen concluded his presentation with a powerful and compassionate appeal for more support for education.

Rock stars and sports stars are not what got us where we are today. The problem in American is not an education crisis. It’s a culture crisis. It should it bother us that kids can’t separate fact from fiction. Einstein said, “The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.”

The only way to get kids to participate is to engage them. “We have too many dangerous distractions. We need superstars of science and engineering like the superstars of sports.” He gave a quick history of his FIRST (For Inspiration and Resognition of Science and Technology) program and its incredible successes.