The Color of Innovation

The Color of Innovation is East Crimson

Although an ancient state, Zhou’s sole mission is innovation.

—— Anecdotes of King Wen, Major Odes. The Book of Poetry

      On October 27, 2011, an organized gathering on one of Boston’s red line subways attracted the attention of many passers-by. At one o’ clock sharp in the afternoon, a train with the sign of “Innovation Express” departed slowly from JFK/UMASS station. In the last carriage of the train, over fifty special passengers stood together, shaking hands, greeting each other and quickly getting into conversations. The organizers, as soon as they were finished with announcing the itinerary as well as warnings, quickly passed the bullhorn on to prearranged keynote speakers of the day. It was Boston World Partnerships, shortened as BWP, who initiated, sponsored and organized this innovation trip via Internet and cell phone. Those invited were all entrepreneurs and business networkers actively involved in innovation activities around Boston and Cambridge. “Innovation Express” not only allowed passengers to freely join at all stations but had set up brief addresses by representatives from start-up facilities and organizations in between stations. All participants alighted at the Davis Square Station in Somerville and took the return train back to Kendall Square, where they continued the buzzing discussions in Cambridge Innovation Center.

The event was a huge success. For one thing, the participants exchanged plenty of information regarding the industries; for another, they made first moves on establishing lasting ties with peers. Besides, the city was able to promote both Innovation District and New Urban Mechanics, and the passengers who joined during the ride learned about many companies and organizations along the red line. All had an extraordinary first-hand experience of Boston area’s rich innovation atmosphere and growth vitality. By the word of month of the participants and witnesses, as well as extensive media coverage, “Innovation Express” brought into public view such enterprises, institutions and projects, well known or unfamiliar, as UMass Boston Venture Development Center, Work Bar, Cambridge Innovation Center, Harvard Innovation Lab, Boston World Partnerships and Future Boston Alliance.

The ingenuous planning of “Innovation Express” boosted the fame of Red Line, yet it was President Drew Faust of Harvard University who first made connections between Red Line and innovation. Anyone who knows well about the trajectory of Boston’s innovation economy would remember the moment on May 1, 2009 when Faust delivered a memorable speech at UMass Boston campus, entitled “Innovation, Collaboration and Renewal- Lessons along the Red Line.” Through citing a considerable amount of both data and facts, Faust struck home the significant role universities and research institutes in the Greater Boston Area have played in promoting regional economic development. Echoing the theme of Obama’s address at the Annual Meeting of the National Academy of Science one week earlier, Faust made a vocal appeal in continued increase in  R&D investment, at a difficult time as such, to assist America’s economic revival and sustainable growth. She employed her personal experience on the Red Line to articulate a new and weighty discovery.

“The Red Line, which I rode here this morning, is far more than a subway line, far more than a transportation artery – it is a highly useful reminder of where we have been, and where we are, and where we can go … if we commit to working together to get there.”

“The Red Line is not just transportation. It connects programs; it connects institutions; and, most important…it connects people…people who are the most efficient translators of ideas, innovation and knowledge; it provides us with a vision of what our community was…what it is…and what it can become. But this unassuming transit line is also a ruby necklace, whose jewels include – to name a few – Tufts, Harvard, Novartis, Amgen, MIT, the Broad Institute, the Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, the Federal Reserve Bank, and, of course, the University of Massachusetts Boston and the Venture Development Center whose creation we celebrate today.”

Foster then introduced in specific some of the innovation events and programs that have grown and developed on the many innovation sites. The close linkage between innovation and Red Line was then officially established.

On April 13, WBUR, the radio network based in Boston, began one of its reports on Red Line with the following words: “Remember how Route 128 used to be known as America’s Technology Highway? Well perhaps now there’s America’s Technology Subway.” Boston’s innovation hub, especially tailored for novice, Greenhorn Connect, made a direct proposition that we should rename the “Red Line” the “Innovation Line.”

In America, meetings, events and speeches too are obligations for leaders and managers. Yet events like “Innovation Express” and such talks as those on “Innovation Red Line”, I figure, would seem more of a delight than boredom for most people.

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      March 23, 2012 marked the centennial anniversary of the Red Line subway. The red Line, last to be built among the four subway lines in Boston area (America’s first subway line was opened in 1897, which became part of the present day Green Line), soon grew to be the region’s most modernized and fastest subway line with fewest accidents. From using the world’s longest and widest carriage to being among the first to install soft seats, polka dot curtains and ventilation fan, and to recently putting in place LED displays and other advanced electronic equipment, the red line has been the most convenient and comfortable local public transport.

It took over fifteen years, from 1894 to 1909, for the Red Line project to start after it had been conceived. Initially, the discussion was about route and funding, then Boston Elevated Railway was asked to build the bridge over Charles River first, and finally, the number of stops along the line was debated. All different types of stakeholders, including residents living in adjacent areas to the line, businesses, government agencies, as well as construction and operating companies, were allowed to fully express their opinions and aspirations, followed by endless hearings, verifications and debates until compromises were ultimately reached. Once all the procedures were finished, building the road became easy. Only three years passed before all the construction work was completed. At five twenty-four on the afternoon of March 23, 1912, the train with superiorly designed extra-long and extra-large carriages set off from Harvard Square toward Park Street. Nearly 300 passengers took the first train, mostly Harvard students. They danced and cheered as if they were heralding a brand new era! A total of eighteen years were divided between three years of actual construction and fifteen years of investigation and negotiation. What may appear incredible to us is exactly the American way of doing business. In view of its normal operation 100 years later and its assumption of new tasks to promote innovation economy, all the prudence and delay early on seemed worthwhile.

The opening of subway line from Harvard Square to Park Street was only a prologue to the construction project of a main artery to connect the south and north of Boston. Although the large-scale construction concentrated in a two-decade period between 1912 and 1929, it was not until after 1985 that the expansion was completed and the whole line began its stable operation. In the 1970s, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (referred to as MBTA) conceived a grand plan of connecting Route 128 with the Red Line, which met the fierce opposition of some residents from Arlington, the town it would run through. After four years’ demonstration and negotiation, the plan was abandoned in a referendum, but now serves as a textbook case for Professor Alan Altshuler’s course in Kennedy School of Government. However, the entire blueprint for the Red Line is still waiting to be materialized. In fact, a new debate has been on for many years over the connection of the Red and Blue lines. It is a fairly simple proposal: to build a Red-Blue Connector to link Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) on the Red Line with the Government Center on the Blue Line. The progenitor and promoter of this proposal is a reputable NGO in the New English region—Conservation Law Foundation. Founded in 1966, with legal professionals as its core members,CLF advocates environmental protection and public transport services to encourage the region’s “smart growth.”

As for the negative opinions of Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization, CLF’s lawyer Rafael Mares responded with firm rebuttals point by point. He believed any opposition to or delay of the project would be short-sighted, because “it’s a critical project with economic, environmental, and social-justice components.” A series of hearings have been scheduled to decide the fate of this project, and the “Innovation Red Line” is likely to welcome another opportunity for its performance enhancement.

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     Boston is a city in fervent love with red. Red can be seen everywhere, from Harvard Crimson, the Red Line, the Boston Red Sox, red lobsters, to the Freedom Trail, a famous tourist route painted in red and marked with historic sites of America. Loitering on Harvard campus or wandering in Cambridge and Boston downtown, I feel familiar and intimate at the sight of red color everywhere. It is unclear whether Boston’s love affair with red has any connection with Harvard, but the Red Line did get its name from the university. When first opened it was called “Cambridge Connection” or “Cambridge Main Street Subway”. The MBTA bought it over from Boston Elevated Railway in 1964, and the next year they tried to mark different subway lines with various colors. Thanks to its origin from Harvard, which prides itself on the world-famous “Harvard Crimson”, this line was renamed “the Red Line”.

Boston is among the first of American cities to establish ties with China, and so is Harvard as a university. Since the early half of the nineteenth century, Boston merchants have begun to trade with China, and the city enjoyed prosperity from the lucrative maritime business. Harvard’s relationship with China can be traced back to the early twentieth century when the Qing government started to send students abroad. As one of the earliest American universities to receive these students, Harvard remains a key academic institution of Chinese studies. People still take delight in talking about two events that occurred in the Republican era. The first is that Yuan Shikai, upon the recommendation of Charles Eliot, former President of Harvard University, employed Frank Goodnow, the renowned American political scientist and expert on administrative law, to draft a constitution for China. Goodnow completed two between 1913 and 1915. In a speech delivered at the Conference in Memory of the 1911 Revolution on October 29, 2011, William C. Kirby (Professor of Harvard Business School, Director of the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, and Chairman of the Harvard China Fund) made the following remark: “Goodnow had drafted two constitutions: the first one would make- actually it did make Yuan Shikai president for life, and the second one would have made him emperor if he had not died soon. So this was Harvard’s contribution to Chinese democracy.” There is much truth behind the sarcastic humor. The second event happened in 1936, when a giant marble stele, reportedly coming from the imperial court, was presented by the Chinese alumni to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Harvard University. The stele, standing west to the Widener Library and within 500 feet from the famous John Harvard Statue, is now a well-protected cultural relic in Harvard Yard.

Today the tie between Harvard and China is closer than ever. A student of Harvard can have access to the abundant collections of Chinese books at the Harvard-Yenching Library and the Fairbank Center, attend lectures at Ash Center of Kennedy School of Government and East Asian Research Center of Harvard Law School, and come across students, scholars, government officials and tourists from all over China. All these, together with the Harvard crimson, evoke in me warm and wonderful associations. However, I cannot say I was pleasantly impressed by an article from Slate, a well-known online magazine under the control of the Washington Post Company. This article, dated at May 23^rd, used my favorite and respected color in its title—“The East is Crimson.”—but associated Harvard with a political scandal in China, introducing China’s training program and some current students and graduates in a mocking and ridiculing tone. I have a strong intuition and appeal from the bottom of my heart: Harvard crimson is bright red tinted with blue, closer to China’s deep and bright reds, an indication of depth and prudence embracing warmth and intensity. Could it be that the closeness in color suggests an agreement in spiritual temperament? The inscription on the stele proclaims culture to be the lifeblood of a country: a progressive country prospers on a vibrant culture, which in turn thrives on active learning and innovation. Innovation and reform characterize the essence of Chinese culture just as they distinguish Harvard culture. Isn’t that right? There is one color that can transcend time and space to inspire a common vision, and there is a red that can be renewed and revived by our shared humanity, which I name as the color of innovation—the East Crimson.

References:

A Century of Chinese Republics. Perf. William Kirby. Conference in Memory of the 1911 Revolution. North Shore Society, 30 Nov. 2011. Web. 5 Dec. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoW2OHZjAPo>.

Cheney, Frank. Boston’s Red Line: Bridging the Charles from Alewife to Braintree. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2002. Print.

Denison, D. C. “Ideas Go Underground with ‘Innovation Express’.” The Boston Globe. The New York Times Company, 28 Oct. 2011. Web. 15 Sept. 2012. <http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2011/10/27/start-session-red-line/EqWyXP4YL0jvZ1tLmD7D1I/story.html>.

Faurst, Drew. “Innovation, Collaboration and Renewal – Lessons along the Red Line.” Speech. Office of the President. Harvard University, 1 May 2009. Web. 11 Apr. 2010. <http://www.harvard.edu/president/innovation-collaboration-and-renewal-lessons-along-red-line> .

Gordon, David S. and Arnold Howitt. Extending the Red Line to Arlington. Case study. Cambridge, Harvard Kennedy School, 1987. Print

Moskowitz, Eric. “MBTA’s Red-Blue Connector: Will It Ever Be Built?” The Boston Globe. The New York Times Company, 23 Sept. 2012. Web. 24 Sept. 2012. <http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/09/22/the-mbta-red-blue-connector-will-should-ever-built/ZLHD6Mru9YHtJwpEOFM5sO/story.html>.

Noel, Pugach. “Embarrassed Monarchist: Frank J. Goodnow and Constitutional Development in China, 1913- 1915.” Pacific Historical Review 42.4 (1973): 499-517. JSTOR. Web. 10 Sept. 2012.

A Chinese version of the article can be found at Sina Financial and Economics Blog.