The birth of innovation

Abstract

In January 1970, two hundred technology managers met at a secluded mansion in Glen Cove, Long Island. Their mission: to learn what it takes to be an innovator. From the comfort of their rooms, executives from the likes of AT&T, Honeywell, IBM, and 3M talked shop via closed-circuit television and telephone with leading entrepreneurs, science administrators, and academics, who paced the stage of an intimate theater as they wove parables about how their lives were changed by the accelerating rush of innovation. Each evening, the speakers again held court in the bar, where attendees were encouraged to seize the chance to ask the speaker just how an idea he has presented applies to your particular situation. · The workshop, for which participants paid the equivalent of US $3,000 today, was the brainchild of a new media start-up called Technology Communication. The weekend event captured the clublike exclusivity, expert insight, and collective self-help for revolutionary times that the new venture sought to embrace.