In Pursuit of Improvement.

Today’s Marketing Cookie emphasizes the power of not being satisfied and the endless possibilities you can discover if you keep at it.

Innovation thrives on the pursuit of continuous improvement. It's not always about inventing something entirely new but about refining and enhancing what already exists. The drive to make things better has led to the greatest achievements. By embracing a mindset of constant improvement, we open ourselves to endless possibilities. 

Consider the fact that Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb. What he did do was improve it. On October 14, 1878, Edison filed his first patent application for "Improvement In Electric Lights." It was improved because he figured out that if he removed the air from inside the bulb, any filament he used would burn longer.

The improvements continued. For a year, he and his team tirelessly tested over 6,000 materials in pursuit of the perfect filament. In a late-night experiment, it was testing the cotton thread from a loose button on his assistant’s shirt that made the bulb last 14.5 hours. Edison filed another improvement patent on October 21, 1879.

He sought to improve the bulb even more. In less than a month, he and his team developed a carbon filament made from bamboo and perfected the vacuum process, resulting in a bulb that could last up to 1,200 hours. He filed another improvement patent on November 4, 1879.

Then he worked again through the holiday season to perfect his light bulb again by coiling the filament and coating the wires, resulting in his historic patent on January 27, 1880, for the standard bulb that switched off the darkness throughout the world.

He didn’t stop there.

Thomas Edison had noticed that even with a bulb that could reliably last for 1,200 hours, when the filament eventually broke, a black smudge would appear inside the bulb near the positive end of the filament.  

He knew that his vacuum process was very good, so he was sure that the smudge was not created by a substance inside the bulb. Therefore, he deduced that it must be something coming off the filament itself. So, he added a little plate near the top of the bulb, hoping that whatever was emanating from the filament would jump off and stick onto the plate, possibly keeping the filament from breaking in the first place. It didn’t work. 

Rather than giving up, he added extra voltage to the plate. As the filament heated up, the electrons started jumping off the filament and onto the charged plate. This phenomenon of wireless jumping electrons was called the “Edison effect.” Aside from patenting it, Edison determined that it didn’t improve his light bulb, so he moved on.

Like the light bulb, invented by someone else and improved by Edison, the vacuum tube that he invented would be improved by many others. What Edison did not understand was that way back in 1883, he had invented and patented what later became the critical component necessary for radar, radio, television, and the first computers.

Edison could have given up after he had perfected the 14-hour light bulb. If he had, our pinky toes would surely find the furniture every night as our bulbs burned out, and the colorful language that ensues would be a common sound in every house. He could have been satisfied with his 1,200-hour light bulb too, but he wasn't. Edison’s continuous pursuit of improvement after improvement shows us how possibilities are made. 

Looking for new ways and better means of improvement in everything you do can reveal the obstacles and opportunities you hadn’t noticed before and then it can be just as today’s fortune says, “It's always better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”