Amidst all the hype about "future firms," "innovation management" and "technoleverage," it's easy to forget that innovation starts small. The slightly mad inventor tinkering in his cellar, once a cultural hero in the United States, has been overshadowed by the product development team working in a billion-dollar research park. But Edison started out as an itinerant telegraph operator, and even today, unconventional ideas are likeliest to pop up in disestablishmentarian places-or so David Lindsay is convinced.

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