Innovators' Road Trip » The Henry Ford

Team Comments from Day 1

Colin Browning — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:17:22 +0000

Below is a quick video of the comments from day one after Jeff and John enjoyed the tour of The Henry Ford Museum and Jim and I were stuck in a travel nightmare.

/colin

Bob Casey – Henry Ford Museum

jeffcutler — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:17:12 +0000

We wanted to get the perspective of a guy who spends his days surrounded by the transportation inventions of Henry Ford. We found just that person in Bob Casey, Curator of Transportation at the Henry Ford Museum.

Casey told us what particular items that Ford created pique his interest, his imagination and make him think about the power of innovation.

J. Marc Greuther – Curator of the Henry Ford Museum

jeffcutler — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:48:18 +0000

Impressions

jeffcutler — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:20:54 +0000

Take what you know about innovation and turn it on its head. To many people the word innovation is just buzz. It rings hollow and is popular with office drones who like to play Buzzword Bingo. Our experiences have already opened our eyes.

For instance, we learned yesterday that Henry Ford’s approach to innovation was incremental in nature. For each small advance – like the process of casting engine blocks – Ford would take it a step further and combine that with a broader view. That’s, in effect, how he came up with a full-on assembly line for the Model T.

Bob Casey – one of the Ford Museum’s curators made the point that innovation doesn’t spring to life as people might think. It’s not invention that comes fully formed to the fore. He said that innovation takes hard work, creativity and passion.

For more info, stay tuned. The link to our interview with Bob Casey and Marc Greuther (also a museum curator) will be posted here tonight.

Thanks for following #iroadtrip on Twitter and we’ll be in touch.