When the telephone was rolled out as a commercial product, AT&T spent a few decades trying to persuade its customers not to use it to call their friends and families. Edison thought the phonograph would be used to record last wills. Gutenberg thought he was gong to print Bibles and indulgences to add to the splendour of the Church, and could not have seen the printing-press enabled Protestant Reformation coming. Innovation is not just about new gizmos. It is about what people decide gizmos are.
In this lecture, I offer a complexity perspective on innovation. I argue innovation is emergent; it happens in cascades; it is inherently unpredictable; it is sparked in the context of relationships, not in the mind of lone inventor. Furthermore, I argue that social innovation has just the same characteristics as vanilla technical innovation. Enjoy.
I have to say I really enjoyed this lecture. I guess having a story to illustrate makes more alive!
ReplyDeleteOf course, not all can have the same narrative. =)