I visited the GE Global Research Center last week for my upcoming book on innovation …here’s a draft from that section of the book
“The Last Days of the Mohicans – the James Fenimore Cooper classic set in 1757 - the movies it spawned and the critical discussion it encouraged together paint a vivid picture of the birthing motions of a New World.
In the valley where the Mohicans, the Mohawk and the Huron roamed and schemed with the Dutch, the French and the English, a new tribe has emerged at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY. No scalps to show off these days but there are plenty of patents, Nobel prizes and other recognitions. The 1,700 technologists, majority of them PhDs, in a variety of science and engineering disciplines, are at the crossroads of a New World. It is a world of Grand Challenges laid out by the National Academy of Engineering and the UN Millennium Development Goals. These are goals which call for new medicine, new energy and new algorithms.
They take a challenge and weave it into their business unit’s mission statement. So the “big market opportunity” for the water business is to go from “scarcity threatening” to “abundant and cleaner sources”, for aviation and transportation to go from “steady progress” to “breakthroughs in efficiency, emissions and noise”.
Jeff Immelt, the CEO of GE, is a modern-day Polymath. He has to be to run a company with such a wide portfolio of products and geographic locations. He is additionally an ambassador – knows most world leaders on a first name basis. He is also a salesman – knows every major CEO around the world on a first name basis. But at heart he is a geek. The helipad at GE Global Research, a short flight from corporate headquarters in Fairfield, CT is a favorite destination.
His predecessor, Jack Welch, earned the title of “Neutron Jack” for his focus on efficiency; Jeff will likely go down in history as “Proton Jeff” as he encourages positive vibes towards all kinds of technology. GE Global Research is organized into 10 technology competencies – Energy & Propulsion, Chemical technologies and Materials Characterization, Material Systems, Biosciences, Power Conversion Systems, Electronic Systems and Controls, Computing/Decision Sciences, Imaging, Micro and Nano structures and Ceramics and Metallurgy.
GE Global Research, of course, was born long before Jeff became CEO. This is after all the company that Thomas Edison started. (The GE Global Research blog is called Edison’s Desk. The antique desk itself is still on display in the main lobby at Niskayuna. So are pictures of the most prolific GE scientists – the exclusive club requires each to have 25 patents or more).
But Jeff is gradually, indelibly leaving his mark on the company – with a re-focus on complex, industrial technologies. In his annual letter to shareholders in 2009 he wrote:
“I believe that a popular, thirty-year notion that the U.S. can evolve from being a technology and manufacturing leader to a service leader is just wrong.”
So, Jeff ‘s tribe is marching to a different tune as the companies diversifies from its finance operations after the recent market turmoil, and as it sells a majority interest in NBC Universal to the cable operator, Comcast.”
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