Recognizing knowledge as a strategic asset, Corning transformed itself from a maker of kitchen products for more than a century into the inventor of the optical fiber that now supports the Internet. In , authors Margaret B.W. Graham and Alec T. Shuldiner argue that the company has not only improved its products over the years, it has also improved the processes by which it does business a distincti0n that makes Corning an ideal model of a traditional manufacturing company that has kept pace with an ever-changing marketplace.

From a business perspective, it is intriguing to learn how a company was able to take a fundamental material glass and both develop its particular formulation and engineer the industrial process to expedite manufacturing. This was true for the electric light bulb, fiber optics, and a host of other industrial and consumer products. The history also shows how Corning leveraged its competencies through large-scale partnerships. In Corning and the Craft of Innovation, history is subjugated to more specific topics. Hence, Gross and Shuldiner deal with glassmaking as both an art and a science, the realm of processes, and military applications. Perhaps the greatest value of the book is in showing how Corning came to embody what in today's jargon is a "learning organization." As a result, an organization that made its living off the mundane (e.g., the light bulb) was able to create the spectacular (e.g., the 200" telescope mirror).