Communication is Key

Hidden within today's NYT article on the ongoing resuscitation of Kodak (here) is a lesson about how corporate structure can support innovation:

[In the new Kodak] researchers who rarely interacted are now expected to collaborate....“This used to be a closed society, where some researchers kept their records in locked safes...”
Researchers...must now work with the business managers...Today, everyone involved in creating, selling and servicing ... is grouped together...
“Finally, we have a structure that promotes commercialization of research.”...

Too often corporations create structures where there is little interaction between R&D and marketing functions. Organizations such as HP, CERN, and 3M have institutionalized this cross-functional collaboration, enabling nascent ideas to benefit from business-unit guidance, with the goal of innovation commercialization.