BECG theblog

Illusions and the Elusive: The Innovation Conundrum

I just finished reading Eric Schmidt's article on innovation in the Washington Post. Directionally, the article is fine, but there are a couple of things I feel compelled to point out:

• While everyone wants innovation, this is a word that connotes so many different things to so many different people that it has become virtually meaningless. For instance most (like Commerce Secretary Locke) focus on 'breakthrough' innovations. However, having done a ton of research about innovation and innovators, I know that most innovations begin with tweakage: tinkering with something you already know about, to make it better suit your own personal needs. If you only look for big ideas, you're going to miss the boat — or, oops -- the spaceship.


• Most innovation does not take place in labs--it takes place in the most unglamorous of places (no, I don't necessarily mean the bathroom!).


• Innovative people usually don't quite 'fit in.''Typically, organizations 'kill off' this type of person, sending them to corporate Siberia and/or simply extruding them.  Then, months later, a new "innovation pod," is formed by executive fiat--lavishly funded and populated by all of the usual suspects -- who do fit in. Eventually, after issuing a series of highly bounded, 'safe' recommendations, the pod is disbanded or fades into obscurity.


• The stereotype of the innovator as a 'lone wolf' is inaccurate. This is where connectivity and the Internet fit in. Those who don't quite fit in are a minority, and they are scattered hither and yon. Yet, communication between multiple parties with shared interests lies at the heart of innovation. Internet-based connectivity makes it possible for 'weirdos,' AKA innovative types, to find one another and engage in the kind of dialog and collaborative effort that does make for breakthroughs.


• Not all innovation occurs in the high-tech sector: au contraire. For instance, I recently went to my local hardware store, where I saw and bought -- for 59¢ -- a strangely shaped, highly innovative pan scraper made of molded plastic. It's better than any pot scraper I have ever experienced. *Myopia alert!* I am confident Paul Budde, a chief architect of Australia's ambitious broadband plan and proponent of silo-free thought, would back me up on this. Trans-sector thinking knows no size.


• I REALLY wish the people who hold the power to facilitate innovation writ large (as referenced in the article) knew some of these things. It would definitely make for greater effectiveness in "erasing our innovation deficit."

Debt in America: fact vs fiction

Watching the State of the Union address Tuesday night, I sometimes felt the urge to shout at the TV set. Although the President seems to want to do right by people, his repeated mentions of "responsible homeowners" told me that he does not understand borrowers' motivations, nor does he 'get' what underlies most late- or non-payment of debt. The reality is: If people do not make their mortgage payments, it is rarely because they are irresponsible.'

Obama is not alone in his lack of understanding. Both Robert Manning (2000) and David Graeber (2010) have noted that, in our society, to be in debt is to be judged morally wanting - even if that judgment has no basis in reality. Take a look at the facts - the main causes of consumer bankruptcy are:

• Shocks to income in the form of job loss, death of a wage earner, or divorce, and 
• Shocks to expenses in the form of medical crises. 

Either one of these catastrophes would be bad enough to bring a famly down, but they are prone to co-occur since in the US, loss of employment typically translates into loss of health insurance. That these 'drive' non-payment, particularly for homeowners, was documented in As We Forgive Our Debtors (Sullivan, Warren & Westbrook, 2000) and has been corroborated by numerous rigorously-conducted studies by economists (see citations in the embedded links). 

Even a decade ago, the harbingers of today's debt crisis were lurking in plain view. On a systemic level, things are now much worse. Yet, there are many answers to be found. They lie neglected because so many people can't get beyond their counter-factual moral judgments. Ironically, it is the moral judgment that causes the harm, and it is they who would punish the suffering that carry the disease.

 

Why is today different from all other days?

It is the 148th anniversary of the date upon which President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address:*

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

To me, this event - and these words - are sacred. Think about it:  

" we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Never have they been more relevant.

* Hay version