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Creating "The Perfect World" for Lighting
Learning from Other Industries
Collaborating to Light the Way
Making Lighting Products Sustainable
The Founding Fathers and Mothers

Creating "The Perfect World" for Lighting

What if lighting was fun?

What if people understood its health benefits?

What if people actually valued lighting?

What if the lighting industry could reverse the increasing commoditization it faces by conveying these values - and more?

And what if it could create environmentally sensitive products that break the"take-make-waste" cycle of industrial production?
Transforming those "what ifs" into realities is the challenge that more than 125 leaders met to discuss this week at Bridges in Light, which became dubbed "The First Continental Congress of Lighting."

It's just the beginning in a 5- to 10-year process requiring unprecedented collaboration among lighting industry competitors and other interested parties, including researchers, utility officials, representatives of government and state agencies, designers, and engineers.

"This is going to take some time. Much like the founding fathers, who had a crisis to begin with, it took a great effort to stay the course," said Dr. Mark Rea, director of the Lighting Research Center, and the latter day Benjamin Franklin framing the path ahead.

"It's going to be emotional to stay the course. I hope you stay with us because we can't do it without you."

Learning from Other Industries

First, more bad news: "The incumbents in an industry appear to be at a disadvantage. This has been documented," said Dr. Paul H. Schoemaker, chairman and CEO of Decision Strategies International.

Companies often go through three stages, he said:

Risk-taking

Care-taking

Undertaking
Of course, no one wants to be in that last spot.

For an industry that has seen a declining market average selling price for lamps, electronic ballasts and HID ballasts since 2000, Schoemaker asked, "Are you in a death spiral"

What's called for, Schoemaker says, is the "painful, difficult process of teaching old dogs new tricks".

Market leaders often miss new markets. Coca-Cola and Pepsi, for instance, at first missed the diet soft drink and caffeine-free markets. Levi Srauss missed designer jeans. Swiss watchmakers didn't "do" digital.

In 1968, General Motors' key assumptions set it up for the fall that was to come. They were:

GM is in the business of making money, not cars.

Success is the result of rapid adaptation, not technological leadership.

Cars are primarily status symbols; people want to upgrade.

The U.S. car market is isolated from the rest of the world.

Fuel will remain cheap and abundant.

The government is an enemy, and so are unions.
The mega-car maker missed these so-called "weak signals" in 1968:

Japanese competition (Honda was getting a foothold in California with its motorcycles);

Trouble was brewing in the Middle East

The advent of environmentalism, with the publication of Rachel Carson's book, "Silent Spring"
Managerial challenges are to overcome these obstacles, many self-imposed:

Wrong mindsets

Overconfidence

Distorted information

Not seeing the Big Picture
"The psychological nature of humans causes serious blind spots and the inability to see the world in new ways," he said.

To illustrate how leaders often operate with blinders on, Schoemaker quoted predictions of long-ago Titans of American industry:

"I think there is a world market for about five computers," said Thomas J. Watson, chairman of IBM, in 1943.

"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home," said Ken Olson, president of Digital Equipment Corporation in 1977.
"We need to be humbled more as we look at future opportunities," Schoemaker said.

Collaborating to Light the Way

"Have industries been successful in recreating themselves when faced with commoditization," Schoemaker asked.

Luckily for the audience, the answer was a resounding "Yes," and he had examples.

The semiconductor industry joined forces to create a market resurgence by modifying and standardizing their products for mobile devices.

Internet service providers combined resources to forge an increase in broadband usage.
In each case, collaboration among market competitors helped lay the groundwork for sharing a brighter future.

Schoemaker offered scenario planning as a tool the lighting industry should consider as it works together.

"Scenario planning is a strategic compass for profiting from uncertainty," he said.

It requires brainstorming about trends and uncertainties facing the industry, prioritizing these trends and uncertainties, then developing strategies to capitalize on them.

Break-out groups worked on this process of defining trends and uncertainties, and their findings will be examined by a task force that will meet again before the end of 2003.

Making Lighting Products Sustainable

Architect and designer William McDonough, hailed by Time magazine as a "hero of the planet," challenged the industry to make sustainable design part of its transformation equation.

Co-author of "Cradle to Cradle: A Laboratory of Hope," McDonough asked, "What are your intentions," He asked the group to ask themselves, "What do we do."

"When we see mercury contamination, do we say, "Well, what we do is mercury contamination." At what point do we say, "It's not our intent to do that." he asked.

McDonough called for the group to have an enlightenment and declare a "declaration of interdependence with all things."

"Our designs have become brute force designs," says McDonough, who also runs a company that develops earth-friendly products.

"When do we consider ourselves part of life itself" Aren't we all indigenous people, indigenous to this planet." he said.

The Founding Fathers and Mothers

The "Bridges of Light" Symposium was in important first step, launched by a special Advisory Council, made up of leaders from public and private sectors. These "founding fathers and mothers" of the movement are:

Zia Eftekhar, President of Lightolier, Director & VP of the Genlyte Group

Kathleen Hogan, Director of Climate Protection Partnership Division of US EPA

Kerry Kuhlman, President and Chief Operating Officer of Western Massachusetts Electric Co.

Henny Peters, Executive VP & General Manager of General Lighting at Osram Sylvania

Govi Rao, VP of Business Creation at Philips Lighting

Mark Rea, Director of the Lighting Research Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

JF Simard, President & General Manager of Lumec, Inc.

Peter Smith, Acting President of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)
Among their comments concluding the session:

Rao, who is relatively new to the industry, said he was surprised to find it so boring, and called for industry leaders to make it "sexier."

Henry Peters, executive vice president and general manager of General Lighting for Osram Sylvania, said he found himself in the unusual position of agreeing with a competitor: "He's absolutely correct. We are boring. We haven't been able, in the past 50 years, to excite people about buying our products."

Lightolier's president, Zia Eftekhar, says he has been inspired, for 35 years, by the fact that "we touch everybody's life, every day of their lives."