Designing for "accidental innovation"

Did you know that anesthesia, cellophane, cholesterol lowering drugs, cornflakes, dynamite, the ice cream soda, Ivory soap, NutraSweet (and several other artificial sweeteners), nylon, penicillin, photography, rayon, PVC, smallpox vaccine, stainless steel and Teflon were all discovered by accident?

In this HBS interview "The Accidental Innovator", Robert Austin discusses the role of accidents in the creative process.

Comments

[TheBizofKnowledge]

I thought that was a great interview! It just reinforces the fact that it's not always good to get things "right" the first time, and that you never know where your thoughts or actions will take you.

[Eh Nonymous]

Please distinguish between "accidental" and "fortuitous." It's an accident when I'm walking down the street and find a $20 bill - unless I was looking down as well as up.

It's fortuitous when you go looking for buried soda cans in the sand and find a rolex. Not an accident. Preparation plus being in the right place at the right time, prepared to recognize (or recognise, if you insist) an unsought-for plus.

Thus, there's a difference between NutraSweet and some of the other discoveries above (also, it's stupid to lick your thumb when doing chemistry, even hours later, even when using a fantastically weak solution). There's also a difference between a trained observer noticing something significant, and turning that into something useful (smallpox vaccine). It's not like other "bench accidents" which lead to discoveries.