Posts Tagged ‘increasing innovation’
The Genius of Asking Dumb Questions
Two days ago I commented on how technical jargon can either enhance or impede communications. I ran across this quote today from the 1987 book Thriving on Chaos by Tom Peters along the same thread, and thought I’d share:
Mostly, it’s the dumb, elementary questions followed up by a dozen even more elementary questions that yield the pay dirt. Experts are those who don’t need to bother with elementary questions anymore – thus they fail to bother with the true sources of bottlenecks buried deep in habitual routines of the firm labeled “We’ve always done it that way.”
We can only uncover changes in our expectations, and changes in our underlying assumptions, by asking simple questions over and over. The “5 Why’s” – that I mention in Real or Not Real – are another way to figure out what rudimentary questions to revisit to unlock insight. Remember that unlocking insight is a critical step for you or your organization to increase innovation.
2010 Update: Speaking of simple questions, a very basic question was the premise for my book Disconnected: Technology Addiction & the Search for Authenticity in Virtual Life – “if I disconnect from my virtual life, will I reconnect with my REAL one?”
The Relativity of Innovation
Increasing innovation is something that many companies want to do to enhance and sustain competitiveness. In “Will the American Competitiveness Initiative Work?” I asked whether throwing money at the problem is the best approach.
I ask this question because most of the books and academic literature on innovation only consider the absolute aspects of innovation. For example, how do you come up with new ideas? Or bring disparate ideas together into new amalgams of ideas? How can you unite the right people to stimulate productive collaboration? How do you generate new patentable machines and methods? [I’m thinking about books like Kelley’s The Art of Innovation
But innovation is relative to a person, a community, or a society – and the social context within which these people interact with one another. The concept of appropriate technology considers that the progress and advancement brought about by innovation might involve a simple, uncomplicated solution. With this in mind, here are the two genres that an innovation can follow:
- Absolutely Innovative – A new idea, invention or product is implemented, possibly in a new social context or for a new purpose. Examples: iPod/iPhone, composite materials, social networking software, nanotechnology. The novelty of these innovations is clear – it’s new to everyone, but is possibly only useful to some.
- Relatively Innovative – It might not be a new idea, invention, or product, but it is implemented in a new context or for a new purpose. Example: bringing clean water to an impoverished village. Is it absolutely innovative? No, because the technology for producing clean water is not new. But the way in which the technology is integrated into the new environment might yield great benefits to the local community, and thus be considered an earth-shattering innovation.
There are a few visionary researchers who are more sensitive to relative innovation – in particular, C.K. Prahalad’s The New Age of Innovation 
A New American Competitiveness can be fueled by relative innovation. (One more day and I’ll post my two-pronged strategy.)
Flow for Organizational Effectiveness & Increasing Innovation
Finding “work-life balance” has become a theme in modern life. According to WebMD, there are five steps to achieve work-life balance: 1) set good priorities (this requires knowing what you value), 2) eliminate unnecessary distractions, 3) set boundaries, 4) accept help, and 5) plan times for fun and reflection. The Mayo Clinic provides even more ideas for how to achieve the balance. Some people have even observed that perhaps work-life balance is the wrong problem – and achieving a sense of inner peace and purpose boils down to prioritizing effectively.
But finding joy in work can be equally important, and sometime even more important. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, one of the “unsung heroes of quality” in my opinion, has spent his career researching the psychological characteristics and impacts of this feeling. In a September 1996 interview with Wired, he defined flow as “Being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”
Flow has three defining characteristics:
- Merging of action and awareness – “You’re so involved in what you’re doing you aren’t thinking about yourself as separate from the immediate activity. You’re no longer a participant observer, only a participant. You’re moving in harmony with something else you’re part of.”
- A sense of control – You’re comfortable with the level of ambiguity of the problem you’re solving, it has been sufficiently constrained so that you’re empowered to make progress, and you’re not worried about your ability to perform – you know you can do it.
- An altered sense of time – You’re so immersed in your task that there is no room for boredom, and time flies by.
Flow emerges from a intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the feeling of wanting to do something. Extrinsic motivation describes the situation of having to do something. Csikzentmihalyi says we need both – we need the personal stimulus that comes from wanting to perform a task, and the environmental stimulus that comes from other people caring about what we contribute. Many obstacles prevent can people from feeling flow: job burnout, having too many tasks (when you are “stretched too thin” and feel like you’re on autopilot), having too many competing priorities, and lack of boundaries (either work and life blend into one another, or there are “too many chiefs and not enough Indians” working on a problem).
“Understanding how flow works is essential for social scientists interested in improving the quality of life at either the subjective or objective level. Transforming this knowledge into effective action is not easy.”
Finding flow – even occasionally – is one key to achieving organizational effectiveness. Flow is also critical for increasing innovation. No flow, no grow.
Csikszentmihalyi, M., Abuhamdeh, S., & Nakamura, J. (2005). Flow. In Elliot, A.J. & Dweck, C.S. (Eds.), Handbook of Competence and Motivation, Guilford Press.
Low-Tech, High Impact Innovation
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Did you know that sometimes, a simple solution can be orders of magnitude more effective than an advanced, modern one?
The term for this is “appropriate technology” – and the concept of appropriate technology is particularly relevant when you want to innovate in a developing economy. But it can also provide a blueprint for innovation under any economic circumstances. |
The World Bank, an assistance agency of the United Nations, provides funds to developing countries for projects that are not eligible for lending from institutions in other world markets. Although it was originally instituted to fund reconstruction projects after World War II, its projects to date include building power dams, improving sanitation, stimulating agricultural technology transfer (particularly for independent farmers), and stimulating technology transfer for all aspects of industrial technology in developing countries. Citing E.F. Schumacher’s 1973 book as the source of the “appropriate technology” movement, World Bank research economists collected and gathered empirical evidence to test the notion that “intermediate” technologies adapted to local conditions that include lesser education and more widespread unemployment would be more effective in achieving local economic goals. (Weiss 2006)
They found that indeed, you could pick technologies to implement in under-developed countries that had excellent cost/benefit profiles – but those technologies would still not be adopted by the people (or they might adopt them, but the effect would be detrimental). Weiss traced the progress of four initiatives that considered this paradox using the principle of appropriate technology. The latest, greatest equipment to move earth and build villages faster looked like it had great innovative potential – on paper. But what really happened as a result of this study?
The researchers came up with some pretty enlightening examples of efficient appropriate technology in the field. For example, did you know that head baskets can be one of the most efficient solutions for moving earth over short distances on level ground? Did you know that donkeys provide a more effective solution for transporting materials short distances up steep slopes than heavy machines?
Adopting the perspective of “appropriate technology” is an excellent way to promote and increase innovation. Your solutions don’t have to be high tech, they just have to provide wide benefits – and taking this sometimes counterintuitive approach can be enlightening.
The concept of appropriate technology reflects both the ISO 8402 definition of quality, and the ISO 9241-11 definition of usability, each of which requires four elements: specified users (or people who benefit), specified goals, systems that are intended to meet those goals for those users, and a specified context of use. Too often we might neglect that final element, which really represents what we are trying to achieve when we consider the appropriateness of technology. If we strive to always take into account systems thinking, however, we should naturally account for many of these considerations as we accommodate a myriad of international and cultural differences.
Weiss, C. (2006). Science and technology at the World Bank, 1968-83. History and Technology, 22(1), March 2006, p. 81-104.
Technology, Competitiveness and the 2008 Election
Competitiveness is the “capacity of people, organizations and nations to achieve superior outputs and especially outcomes, and in particular, to add value, while using the same or lower amounts of inputs.” (Caryannis & Gonzalez, 2003) Basically, how can you make the best of the resources you have – and produce high quality stuff while you’re at it? On the national scale, competitiveness is often assessed by how well the organizations, institutions, infrastructure and economic policies of a country (inputs) can be leveraged by people to enhance the collective quality of life (outputs). Adding value to peoples’ lives by enhancing the quality of life is the goal!
These inputs are all technologies – elements that contribute to social groups providing themselves with the material objects of their civilizations. When changes in any of them either improve or inhibit the performance of people, companies or countries, those technological outcomes also influence competitiveness. Reducing waste, improving reliability, creating new products and defining new, needed services all contribute to increasing competitiveness. However, we shouldn’t forget that improving institutions like schools and healthcare systems, improving infrastructure for transportation and communications, and sharpening the economic policy so that it supports sustainable progress are also important.
How do the candidates’ proposed innovation policies stack up against one another? Here are a few of the best resources I’ve found to help explain the differences to me:
- NEW: Rivals Visions Differ on Unleashing Innovation (W.J. Broad & C. Dean, New York Times, 10/20/2008)
- Comparing the candidates’ technology and innovation policies – summary by Fast Company (Robert Atkinson, 10/10/2008)
- Comparing the candidates’ technology and innovation policies – full report (The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation Report, October 2008)
- Obama vs. McCain: The Wired Scorecard (Nicholas Thompson, 10/12/2008)
- Can American Invent Its Way Back? (Michael Mandel, 9/11/2008)
- Does It Matter That One Candidate is Comfortable Using Technology and One Isn’t? (Robb Mandelbaum, September 2008)
Caryannis, C. & Gonzalez, M. (2003). Creativity and innovation = competitiveness? When, how and why. In L.V. Shavivina (Ed.), The International Handbook on Innovation. Oxford: Elsevier, pp. 170-179.
Ezell, S.J. & Atkinson, R.D.(2008). Comparing the candidates’ technology and innovation policies. Report of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF). Available online.
