Open sources of the inventionof the airplane

Peter B. Meyer, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics*

* Findings and views are those of the author, not the Bureau

2008 User and Open Innovation Workshop, August 4-6, 2008

Pre-history of the airplane1860s Aeronautical clubs and journals arise1894 Survey book by Chanute1903 Wright brothers’ powered-glider flight1909 An industry exists

Experiments and designs developed slowlyMany were documented and shared openly

Chanute’s 1894 book Progress in Flying Machines refers to many experimenters

and authorsExperimenter/ group

Pagesref’ing

Location(background)

Maxim 33Britain

(from US)

Lilienthal 31 Germany

Penaud 22 France

Mouillard 21Algeria, Egypt(from France)

Hargrave 19Australia

(from Britain)

Moy 19 Britain

Le Bris 17 France

Langley 16 US

Wenham 15 Britain

Phillips 14 Britain

These people wrote and published and were known to one another.

The activity/network was international

The Wrights read and referred to these people heavily.

Historical accounts refer to them heavily.

Before 1903, fixed-wing aircraft patents exist, but don’t matter.

Looks like open innovation?

Autonomous innovators (not hierarchy, not cult) Sharing technical info in public space, including failures

Intellectual property set aside Diverse objectives, including intrinsic, altruistic ones

Want to fly! Curious Hope for recognition Hope to help bring peace, or make own nation safer)

Internationally dispersed collaboration Role for moderator / evangelist / supporter

Micro-economic model Imagine self-motivated tinkerers with some project

“progress” is rewarding to them in future (in utility function) They’d use time, effort, money for experiments

Imagine their experiments have some value to one another Assume they cannot see how a marketable product would arise They’d share findings with other tinkerers They prefer not to bother with intellectual property Moderator/evangelist role arises naturally They’d be willing to specialize to avoid duplication They’d be willing to standardize design and tools

Market processes are not necessary for these effects

Implications

Invention of airplane looks like open innovation. Tinkerer model assumptions generate open

innovation. This process can generate new industries.