Invention to Innovation : lessons from the history of electric Christmas lights
By: Ritu Kaul
Tags: Innovation, Business Growth Strategy, Scalability, Business Strategy

Ritu Kaul

As I went shopping for x’mas goodies in my mask to stores last week, I was delighted to see the vast variety of Christmas tree lights adorning the retail shelves. The lights were available in all shapes, sizes and colors with quiet a few being very innovative designs. As I searched for the perfect lights for my family Christmas tree, it set me thinking on market creation via innovation, in this case a market beyond light as a necessity of life to light as a catalyst for celebration and festive cheer.

Today an estimated 150 million light sets are sold in America each year. They light 80 million homes and consume 6 percent of the nation’s electrical load each December. The journey of the electric bulb from a new invention to lighting a Christmas tree is a story of invention, innovation, re-imagination and commercialization at scale. It’s an incredible journey that started 140 years ago, with valuable lessons along the way which are relevant till today.

Diversity in thought process breeds innovation

Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb in 1879 but it was his employee Johnson who innovated on the invention. While Edison is the father of electric bulb, Johnson can be regarded as the father of the electric Christmas tree lights.

In 1880, Edison put a string of light bulbs outside his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey on the occasion of the visit of government officials to his facility from New York. He was hoping to secure a contract for providing electricity to Manhattan. However, it was his employee Johnson who thought of a different use of the electric bulb. Johnson put up a string of 80 electric bulbs - red, white and blue in colour around a Christmas tree in 1882. He put it up in his parlour on a rotating Christmas Tree at his home on Fifth Avenue. The tree was visible from the street through the window of his house. It generated quite an interest from press and passers by who flocked the window to see this new marvel. This is how the first electric x’mas tree lights were born.

Heterogeneous teams are critical to organisations, these teams represent diverse set of minds that view things differently. It is this diverse thinking that is a fertile ground for innovative ideas, re-purposing products and technologies, questioning status quo.

Key opinion leaders are critical in driving adoption

Although the first electric Christmas tree lights were put up in 1882 by Johnson, it did not generate enough widespread interest. Electricity availability was limited, people were scared to use electricity inside homes and the lights were expensive.

In 1895, thirteen years after Johnson lit the first electric Christmas Tree, President Grover Cleveland asked for the White House Family Christmas Tree to be illuminated by multicolored electric bulbs. Before electric Christmas lights, families used candles to light their Christmas trees. The public still didn’t trust electric lights as a safe alternative to candles, but that changed after President Grover Cleveland featured the first electrically lit White House Christmas tree. With more than 100 multicolored bulbs, the brightly colored tree got America’s attention, and illuminated Christmas trees came to be the vogue for the rich and wealthy.

We are living in an era of high technology revolution, as a business leader one can think of how key opinion leaders can accelerate adoption rate for futuristic technologies.

Entrepreneurial mindset is key for recognizing opportunity

Edison and Johnson may have been the first to create electric strands of lights. But it was Albert Sadacca, whose family owned a novelty lighting company, who saw a future in selling them beyond the wealthy society circle.

In 1903 General Electric sold its the first Christmas light kits, more than two decades after Edison’s first Christmas lights lit up Menlo Park. The issue with Edison’s first Christmas light kits was that they were expensive and therefore were used by only the wealthy.

In 1917, Albert Sadacca, a teen from New York City, decided to re-purpose the white novelty lights his family had sold for years by turning them into colored bulbs. As a result, a cheaper and more accessible Christmas light was born. Albert and his brothers organized what became the National Outfit Manufacturers Association Electric Company (NOMA). Over the next several years, Sadacca’s NOMA would take over the industry and become the largest Christmas light manufacturer in the world for the next 40 years.

Affordability drives scale

As Christmas lights became more affordable, more and more people began to purchase Christmas lights in the 1940s and 1950s, and people started decorating their houses as well as their trees. Yards, apartments, commercial complexes, malls, avenues, and even office buildings followed suit.

The electric Christmas lights have a come a long way from the first invention of an incandescent bulb by Edison. They represent a festive cheer, light up dark winter days and are contagion for happiness and warmth.

The history of the electric Christmas light is also a great lesson in innovation and scaling through diversity of the human mind, as different people see opportunities in different ways. Merry Christmas and Happy holidays!