Most people don't become intimately familiar with research (as a concept) because they do not like risk. They want to do something and get something in return- without a chance of coming up empty-handed. Understandable, but also predictably limiting. As anything with a guaranteed result cannot be new and innovative. Because the act of knowing a result for an action means that you have seen an action create a result enough times to have confidence in the transaction. Most commonly- you show up to your job, get your work done, and the result is that you get paid. With generally no risk, since you've been trading time for money successfully for years. And when it comes to earning money that is essential to living, the guarantee is really important.
So naturally, we're tuned not to take big, bold risks. We find safety and comfort in guarantees. Which is a perfectly acceptable fact to live a normal, happy life. But, is there more? More than following the status quo to create a normal, happy life. Yes, there is so much more, but only for those willing to stray from the path of the predictable. This desire to push beyond norms is where good research starts.
Good research often starts with dissatisfaction and an eagerness to improve. For instance, at some point when Kraft was sick of cheese expiring so quickly, he invented a process that created a historic step-change in cheese storage time. He took tons of risk in the research process because his goal was to effectively do the impossible. And doing the impossible takes radical change, which is another characteristic of good research-- it creates material change. And the more risk, the bigger the potential change.
Good research creates material change by creating something new: a new process, a new product, or even new knowledge. So good research takes creativity; it requires you to combine existing knowledge and invent. Invent something that creates as much positive, material change as possible. Where the more people that feel the impact of the research, the more material the change is considered. As it is useful to invent something for a small cohort of academics, but far more useful to invent something that can impact an entire industry.
The downstream results of research in peoples' lives matters far more than the way research is conducted. Since good research should be measured by its results and not by the process in which those results were created.
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