Managing Inventiveness

Looking through the articles in this issue of Challenge, the recurring theme seems to be inventiveness, ranging from the innovative 64-bit RISC architecture jointly developed by ST and Hitachi that is the subject of our lead article, to the radical new techniques that have recently been developed for car radios and hard disk drives, to the considerable ingenuity that has been exploited in the quest for ultimate environmental neutrality.

Invention used to be a quite leisurely activity; the history of science and industry contains many examples of lone inventors working quietly on their brilliant ideas until the time when they felt ready to show them to the world. This casual attitude sometimes had tragic results, as in the case of Elisha Gray, who went to the New York patent office on January 14, 1876 to register one of the most important inventions of the 19th century. He arrived at 2 p.m., only to discover that the same invention - the telephone - had been already registered just two hours earlier by Alexander Graham Bell!

In today's competitive global economy, the speed at which innovative ideas can be conceived, developed, protected and turned into marketable products is a key factor in the success or failure of companies. Nowhere is this more evident than in the microelectronics industry, where the accelerating pace of development puts even greater pressure on those whose job it is to be inventive. It has even been suggested that finding enough skilled, creative designers may become the biggest obstacle to the growth of the semiconductor market. For companies like ST that need to be continually innovating across a very wide range of fields, attracting and keeping the best design talent available is mandatory.

Equally important, however, is providing an environment in which inventiveness can flourish, which means finding the right balance between the organization and the individual, so that inventive minds can work effectively in goal-driven teams without losing their creativity.