Without collaboration, innovation stalls. "Midnight lunch" was the unique practice Thomas Edison used to power collaboration within his innovation colossus. True collaboration has four phases: Capacity, Context, Coherence, and Complexity. Learn how to apply them in the digital era!

2. Book Overview
Midnight Lunch offers a vision for
how collaboration teams can operate
today
Collaboration serves as the backbone,
the sinews, the ligaments that allow
innovation to advance, not stall out
Collaboration enabled Thomas
Edison’s innovation colossus to
flourish. Midnight Lunch reveals
how you can use collaboration to
power innovation success in the
digital era

3. Gravity
Gravity is a unique and pervasive
force in the universe
Though it holds the power to shape
planets, stars, and solar systems, we
often take gravity for granted
It operates in the background

4. Collaboration
Like gravity, collaboration is a force that constantly
surrounds us, yet is rarely noticed
Like gravity, collaboration is a subtle yet pervasive
force that lies at the heart of what shapes teams and
organizations

5. But now, our understanding of
collaboration is changing. It can
no longer be a background force...
…Collaboration is about to take
Center Stage

6. One Billion in One Decade
Between 2010 and 2020, a record
1 billion working-age adults will
enter the global workforce
Uniquely, a majority of this new
workforce will have access to
mobile phones and smart devices
This combination of people
and technology will set in
motion a wave of
collaboration unprecedented
in human history

7. Future Factors
Three factors will differentiate companies and
governments that thrive in the coming era:
1) staying relevant
2) innovating
3) attracting and retaining talent
Collaboration is essential to all three
To thrive in this newly collaborative environment –
often dubbed the Innovation Age – individuals and
organizations must re-skill themselves to align with
these three mandates, or fade into irrelevance

8. Challenge
How can we create the foundations for
collaboration to thrive, especially in our digital
era?
What can we do to
nourish collaboration as a
central force in our
organizations now,
harnessing it in a way
that creates value?

9. Starting Point
We can look to the revolutionary practices of Thomas
Edison – one of the world’s greatest innovators – for
collaboration approaches that can be translated for the
digital era… indeed, the Innovation Age

10. Pioneer
Thomas Edison
pioneered 6 industries
in less than 35 years… All 6 of these industries remain
in existence today:
a feat which has yet to Document duplication…1873
be repeated Telecommunications…1876
Recorded sound…1877
Incandescent electric light and power…1879
Motion pictures…1897
Portable power…1903

11. Impact
As of 1910, the patents and
industries Edison and his
teams established were valued
at $6.7 billion, or roughly $100
billion today
The ripple effect of Edison’s
innovations since his lifetime
exceeds $1,000,000,000,000 globally

12. Learning
There is a great deal we can learn
from Edison about value creation
By studying the core components of
his collaboration methods, we can
translate them for the 21st century

13. True Collaboration
True Collaboration
Edison could not have created billions of
dollars in market value without the power of
“true collaboration.”
“When you honor me, you
are also honoring the vast
army of workers but for
whom my work would have
gone for nothing.”
- Thomas Edison

14. More than Teamwork
Collaboration is not the same thing as teamwork.
Teamwork involves just “doing your part”
Collaboration involves
engaging the unique strengths
of each team participant,
creating a multiplying
force…not just an additive one

15. Knowledge Assets
True collaboration creates
knowledge assets
These knowledge assets can
be reshaped and
reconfigured over
time…yielding a sustaining
engine for value creation,
and innovation

16. Collaboration is a Continuum
For Edison, true collaboration operates as a continuum,
not a stop-start process
True collaboration balances discovery learning and
performance. It moves beyond tasks.

17. Edison’s Four Phases
Let’s examine Thomas Edison’s Four Phases of True
Collaboration™, and identify how each phase can be
applied now…in the Innovation Age
CAPACITY
Assemble small teams of 2 to 8 people
Ensure each team includes a
diversity of expertise, talents,
and thinking styles.

18. Midnight Lunch
Edison created invisible glue between the employees on
these small collaboration teams through a process his
Menlo Park workers called “midnight lunch”

19. Making of a Midnight Lunch
After a full workday, Edison
would sometimes return to
the lab after dinner with his
family, and check in on key
experiments that were
taking place
He encouraged others who
stayed late to share their
experiments with each other,
and exchange their expertise
At 9 pm, after roughly 2 hours of dialogue, Edison ordered
in food and beverages for everyone from a local tavern

20. Employees Become Colleagues
The assembled cadre of workers
hung out with Edison for about an
hour to eat, sing songs, tell stories,
and play musical instruments
They called this “midnight lunch.”
After midnight lunch, everyone
went back to work until the wee
hours of the morning
Through midnight lunches, Edison
transformed employees into
colleagues. Colleagues feel part of a
larger whole. They feel connected
beyond social standing or education

21. Phase Two CONTEXT
Edison was rarely content
accepting things as they were,
preferring to change the playing
field entirely, or improve what
already existed to deliver new
value
Edison savored the creation of
new context for working and
thinking. Through collaboration,
he asked different questions than
his competitors did, yielding
breakthrough insights and unique
experiments

22. Analogical Thinking
In Phase 2, instead of brainstorming,
Edison’s collaboration teams
employed analogical thinking… the
process of comparing two things
that seem unlike and identifying
how they are alike
This activates the brain’s innate
creating centers, yielding fruitful
questions, experiments and patterns
In creating context, Edison also
triumphed through the development
of prototypes, which provide physical
and visual feedback to the brain, and
enable rapid learning cycles

23. Casual Discussion
In Phase 2 Edison also embraced
casual discussion…a means for the
brain to organize and
reorganize concepts without
locking down on them too soon
This helps create new scenarios
without a concern for “being
right” or looking foolish
Through casual conversations,
individuals are encouraged to
contribute their best stuff, and not
hold unique knowledge in reserve

24. Phase Three COHERENCE
Physicist David Bohm describes coherence as “sharing a
common content.” It is an organic rather than a static force
Coherence can be present even if there is some “noise” in the
environment

25. Coherence and Inspiration
Coherence enables teams to
stay together and remain
functional even when there
is disagreement, or when
obstacles arise
Just as we experience today,
in Edison’s time resource
constraints often strain the
coherence of a team
Inspirational leadership is a
key factor which helps
collaboration teams continue to
move forward

26. New Definitions of Progress
Inspirational leaders like Edison, or Steve Jobs, help teams
see the big picture. They lay out a vision of where they’re
headed even if the road to achieving it seems uncertain
Edison helped teams define how progress could be gauged
New definitions of progress are emerging today as
Generation Y enters the workforce. Creating measures of
progress that motivate your entire team is essential

27. Grooming New Leaders
Edison served as a catalyst for
inspirational leaders to arise in
his labs as well as his factories
Edison also provided shoulder-to-
shoulder leadership by sharing
insights, stories, and helping to
synthesize the knowledge assets
from one team with another
In developing coherence, Edison
uniquely groomed new leaders
and cross-trained his workers

28. Phase Four COMPLEXITY
As never before, manmade complex
systems surround us in daily life.
Examples include familiar systems
like the Stock Market and the
Internet
But now, we have new
manmade systems like social
networks, and realtime data
gathering from smart devices,
driving new forms of complexity
Edison viewed complex systems as a
central part of collaboration and
innovation. Rather than running
from complexity, he embraced it

29. Teams as Complex Systems
By drawing from different disciplines, each small team
Edison formed represented a complex adaptive system
Each of Edison’s collaboration teams included all three
facets which define complexity as we know it today:
1. Multiplicity – the number of potentially interacting
elements in a system
2. Interdependence – the level of connection among the
elements in the system
3. Diversity - the degree of
uniqueness or heterogeneity of
elements in the system

30. Smart Layers Rather than Hierarchies
Edison built his teams in smart layers rather than as
hierarchies. This allowed collaboration to operate more
rapidly and be productive – even without computers
Smart layers engage rapid research, analysis, and synthesis
Today, we can turn to social networks and digital
technologies as tools to navigate complexity inherent in
collaboration, and innovation.

31. Conclusion
By engaging the practice of midnight lunch, and applying
the 4 Phases of True Collaboration™ -- Capacity, Context,
Coherence, and Complexity -- your collaborations can be a
pervasive force powering innovation, anywhere
Begin today
Book: bit.ly/VY7GkP
Website: www.powerpatterns.com
Email: info@powerpatterns.com
Twitter: @sarahcaldicott
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarahcaldicott
Facebook: www.facebook.com/powerpatternsofinnovation

32. About the Author
Sarah Miller Caldicott is a great grandniece of Thomas Edison. She works with
organizations that want to bring innovation practices to the center of their business
culture, driving new levels of growth and relevance.
Sarah is a highly sought after speaker and content developer on the subjects of
enterprise innovation and collaboration. Sarah offers consulting services which
apply Thomas Edison’s world-changing innovation methods in the digital era.
Sarah's books have been featured in The New York Times,
Fortune Small Business, Fast Company, and USA Today.
Sarah has also appeared as an innovation expert on PBS
television, CNBC, the Fox Business Network, and NPR.
Her clients include Intel, Motorola, Microsoft, John Deere,
Emerson, Aon, and the Mayo Clinic among many others.
Sarah received a BA from Wellesley College, where she was
named a Wellesley College Scholar. She holds an MBA
from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
CEO, The Power Patterns of Innovation
7115 North Ave, Suite 312
Oak Park, IL 60302
Phone: +1-708-445-9335
http://www.powerpatterns.com