• Tesla is less remembered outside of engineering because he did not found a company
• Edison is the better elementary school hero--all about hard work
  
• he was not a symbol of "Yankee ingenuity" or of modernism
• he became a symbol to people with eccentric ideas (you can buy purple plates on Amazon)
• Tesla bridges the divide between the spiritual and the material

• AC electric motors
• polyphase AC power transmission
• spurring the development of radio and pioneering the idea of tuning

Can we harness disruptive innovations?

• classes in entrepreneurship tend to start with evaluate the market--adaptive (or incremental or sustaining) innovations
• disruptive innovations go in a new direction instead of building on existing technology and they offer a product that people didn't know they wanted
• example: how do you convince Westinghouse it is worth building a whole new system
• he already has AC with its advantages for transmission, resistant to having to build a new system
• what he is doing is already profitable, why change it for one product (adding a motor)
• people weren't yet able to imagine the difference an electric motor would make
  
• we can learn from Tesla's method of coming up with the invention in the first place and bringing it to reality as a product
  
• Tesla depended on imagination plus carefully examining particular solutions (with help)
• how to create a compelling vision (illusion) of a new idea so people can imagine that unexpected future
• Tesla was motivated by the belief that he could "re-order the world to suit his ideals" (p. 410)
• I would say he wanted to change the world, but it was hard to do that and stay enough in touch with reality
  

Wed. test:

• write one essay (no short answer or multiple choice), somewhere around two pages double spaced typed--your time is the 50 minute class period
  
• You will have a choice of two questions, one of which will focus on some aspect of Tesla's method of invention/innovation and the other of which will focus on some aspect of Tesla as an example of business strategy (and the role of innovation)
• Make sure to write about the specific question asked, not generally about method of invention or business strategy
  
• open book/notes/internet--you may write on your laptop, but test will still be held if network is down
• most important: argument (you have an overall point and a set of linked steps to support it) and using specific evidence to support your argument.  Grammar isn't an issue unless it makes your point hard to understand
  
• your essay should be organized into paragraphs with topic sentences (it is ok for the introduction to be a one sentence paragraph)
• one way to do this is a 5 paragraph essay model, shortened by having 2 instead of 3 body paragraphs, a one sentence introduction, and a short conclusion
• another model, but skip the introductory information
  
• informal references: (Carlson p. 410) or (https://www.feedough.com/disruptive-innovation/)
• if you are sick please email pammack@clemson.edu before test time if at all possible