Innovation

Key Takeaways The Breakdown Rate: At Cambrai, 179 of 378 tanks were out of action by the end of Day 1—mostly from mechanical failure, not enemy fire. The Learning Curve: Early tank tactics were catastrophically wrong. Tanks were scattered, unsupported, and sent against impossible terrain. The Institutional Resistance: Cavalry officers saw tanks as a threat to their arm. Artillery officers resented sharing resources. Infantry didn't trust machines. The Haig Problem: The Commander-in-Chief swung from skepticism to over-reliance, never quite understanding what tanks could and couldn't do. The Eventual Success: By 1918, combined arms doctrine finally worked—but only after two years of painful learning. The Machine That Would End War In September 1916, a strange new weapon crawled across the churned mud of the Somme. It was slow, loud, and terrifying. Soldiers on both sides had never seen anything like it. ...

The Engineering Journey ← Series Home The Myth of the Accidental Invention When a revolutionary new product—be it a sleek smartphone, an advanced jet engine, or a sustainable medical device—hits the market, it is often lauded as the result of singular genius or a sudden flash of inspiration. This view is popular, but it obscures the deeper truth: innovation is less about individual brilliance and more about institutional capacity and systematic process. The journey from a societal need to a functioning, economically viable product is a complex series of decisions, applying mathematics, basic sciences, and engineering knowledge to optimize resource conversion against a stated objective. ...

Key Takeaways Nature's advantage: Evolution has been testing designs for 3.8 billion years. Every organism alive today represents a successful solution to survival challenges. The waste problem: Human manufacturing typically uses 96% of materials as waste. Nature's manufacturing produces zero waste—everything is food for something else. The energy gap: A spider produces silk stronger than steel at room temperature using water. We need 1,500°C furnaces and toxic chemicals to make inferior materials. The biomimicry revolution: From bullet trains to swimsuits, engineers are finally copying nature's solutions—and the results are transforming industries. The Longest R&D Program in History Somewhere around 3.8 billion years ago, the first self-replicating molecules appeared on Earth. What followed was the longest, most rigorous product development program in history—one with a simple rule: what works survives; what doesn’t, disappears. ...

Key Takeaways The Forgotten Victory: The Hundred Days (August-November 1918) was one of history's most successful military campaigns, yet barely exists in public memory. The Learning Organization: The British Army of 1918 was utterly transformed from the amateur force of 1916—professional, coordinated, and lethal. Combined Arms Mastery: Infantry, tanks, artillery, and aircraft finally worked as an integrated system, not separate arms. The Black Day: August 8, 1918 was the "black day of the German Army"—when Ludendorff knew the war was lost. Why We Forgot: Victory doesn't fit the tragedy narrative. The war poets didn't write about winning. The War That Nobody Won Ask anyone how World War I ended, and you’ll hear the same story: ...

The Engineering Journey ← Series Home The Art of the Possible In the competitive global marketplace, the difference between a soaring success—like a highly efficient hybrid car or a seamlessly intuitive digital device—and a costly catastrophe—like a bridge collapse or a major environmental spill—is often invisible to the public. It is embedded not in the final materials, but in the methodical, often iterative, decision-making process that shapes the product from its inception. This systematic pathway is known as the design engineering journey. ...

The Abductive Advantage ← Series Home The failure of Blockbuster illustrated how traditional, deductive strategy—focused on analyzing backward-looking historical data—cannot withstand rapid environmental change. The modern imperative is to adopt Design Thinking for Strategy (DTS), which relies on abductive reasoning, starting with deep customer observation (as discussed in Post 01) and iteratively refining solutions. Once the crucial insights and knowledge have been gathered in the initial phases (Observing and Learning), the strategy challenge shifts from understanding the present to designing the future. This shift demands moving concepts off the abstract whiteboard and transforming them into tangible, testable models. ...

Key Takeaways The 13-Year Gap: Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928; it didn't reach patients until 1941. More soldiers may have died from this delay than in many battles. The Funding Failure: British institutions refused to fund penicillin development. It took American industrial capacity to scale production. The Mold Hunt: The penicillin strain that saved millions came from a moldy cantaloupe in an Illinois grocery store. The Credit War: Fleming got the Nobel Prize and the fame; Florey and Chain did the actual life-saving work. The Uncomfortable Truth: War accelerates medical progress because peacetime bureaucracies are designed to prevent risk, not save lives. The Thirteen-Year Wait In 1928, Alexander Fleming returned from vacation to find mold growing on his petri dishes. Around the mold, bacteria had died. He had discovered antibiotics. ...

Key Takeaways Artillery was King: Over 60% of WWI casualties came from artillery. It was the dominant weapon of the war. The Registration Problem: Pre-war artillery required "registration"—test shots that revealed your attack was coming. Surprise was impossible. The Solution: "Predicted fire" used math to eliminate registration. You could hit targets without warning. Sound and Flash: New technologies located enemy guns by their sound and muzzle flash, enabling counter-battery fire that silenced the opposition. The Creeping Barrage: Precisely timed artillery support let infantry advance behind a wall of explosions—the tactical innovation that broke the stalemate. The Forgotten Revolution When we think of World War I technology, we think of tanks, aircraft, and poison gas. The dramatic. The novel. The photogenic. ...

The Architecture of Choice ← Series Home The Indispensability of Mistakes Human progress, whether measured in engineering feats, scientific breakthroughs, or personal development, is inherently linked to a fundamental concept rejected by paternalistic policies: the freedom to fail. As the engineer Henry Petroski noted, the history of engineering is largely one of learning from the occasional failure of structures, ships, or planes, suggesting that the “lessons learned from those disasters can do more to advance engineering knowledge than all the successful machines and structures in the world”. Attempting to eliminate all individual failure—the underlying goal of many soft and hard nudges—may unintentionally deprive individuals of critical life lessons and the ability to build cognitive resilience. ...

Key Takeaways The Numbers Don't Lie: Radar sank more submarines, shot down more aircraft, and saved more lives than any other WWII technology. The Battle of Britain: Without Chain Home radar, Britain falls in 1940. Without Britain, no D-Day. Without D-Day, no Western front. The Atlantic Gap: Airborne radar closed the "Black Pit" where U-boats had hunted freely. This alone may have decided the war. The Cavity Magnetron: The single most valuable piece of technology transferred to America. Worth more than all other British secrets combined. The Memory Gap: Radar is forgotten because it prevented disasters rather than causing spectacular ones. The Invisible Victory Ask anyone what technology won World War II, and they’ll probably say: the atomic bomb. ...