Serendipity & Innovation

Read an interesting anecdote on the role of Serendipity on Strategic success. Scotch Guard, a runway success from 3M came into existence because of an accidental discovery. A researcher of fluorocarbons happened to spill some onto her shoe in the lab. Subsequently, she happened to spill some coffee over this same shoe in the evening and observed that the coffee just dripped away without staining the shoe. She reported the same to 3M and thus was launched the Scrotch Guard range from 3M.
The Scotch Guard example is remarkably similar to the Coca Cola story. (13th ingrediant, serendipity and all.)

Observation: Very few researchers as a matter of fact derive proportionate gains from their inventions. (Note that the book that chronicled Scotch Guard does not even mention the inventor by name!) In most cases, it seems the bulk of the benefit - the economic one - that is, seems to be cornered by the lucky employer. All that the researcher gains in the process is namesake recognition.This probably has to do with the following factors:
(1) A lack of enterpreneurial focus on the part of the researcher
(2) The relative ease of leveraging the already-established business strengths of the employer as against striking out on own from sratch.
(3) Lack of sufficient bargaining power on the employee's part viz-a-viz the employer.

Good that there have been honourable exceptions to this scenario. Consider the most inveterate inventor of them all - Einstein. Physicists the world over agree that a Thinker of that stature comes into being once in 500 years - the only comparable brains were Isaac Newton and Archimedes. The fact that most people have heard than understood what the great man said speaks for his creativity. There are so many areas where Einstein left an imprint of his genius that even today for the sheer number of inventions no scientist comes close. Imagine now what would have happened if Einstein had the attitude of the 3M researcher or the Coke inventor. Most of his ideas would have been patented and ringing cash-cows for some MNC.!