"
■
*
■ One major advantage the lab's physical
structure was that enabled excellent communication between
workers, especially the second floor the main building
where the experimental rooms were grouped together. Edison's inventive mind could
often see new approaches old problems.
Normal operating procedure West Orange was for Edison
to switch his employees from job job, expecting them not
only pick the line experiments, but also brief
their replacements. His associates noted
that had knack getting the important issue an
experimental project merely asking questions and from his
questions would emerge new direction. Edison
encouraged comunication between teams; when particular
experiment went well, instructed the experimenter "this
answer good that wish you would expand little, as
I want pass along the other boys. some cases, Edison
would frame experimenter's work plan merely giving him a
list questions. The high morale the labor force was an
important part their flexibility, for Marshall noted "we
were all interested what were doing and what the others
were doing.III-12
Edison's great strengths the laboratory was his ability to
see problem from many different sides. his efforts to
improve the power source the phonograph, for example, he
detailed one man redesign the motor, another get a
stronger charge from the battery, and another work the
bearings reduce friction."^ The physical
