The concept of innovation

What’s so great about innovation?

So far we have suggested that innovation is a positive concept and, it appears, the rate of innovation continues to accelerate, led mostly by technology. The process is an example of positive feedback, in which the change is self-reinforcing: the development of technology itself increases the capacity for technological innovation, and raises the expectation of consumers for further innovation. While there seems little reason why this process of accelerating technological change should not continue for the foreseeable future, a counter-view argues that change for change’s sake is not necessarily always desirable. In the following paragraphs we introduce six questions that Neil Postman of New York University believes should be asked when considering innovations (Postman, 1998):

• What is the problem to which this technology is a solution? For example, what problems do a ‘smart’ door knob, or 500 broadcasting channels, really solve?
• Whose problem is it? Most technologies solve some problems, but the problem may not be most people’s problem. The people who benefit from a technology may not be the ones who pay for it.
• What new problems might we be creating? There are few technologies that do not create new problems – often unanticipated ones.
• Who may be harmed by the technology? New technologies always produce losers as well as winners.
• What changes is the technology bringing to language? The electronic community, for example, is very different from the traditional meaning of the word ‘community’.
• How does the technology realign economic and political power? By understanding the changes, we can then decide if we want them.

Postman concludes by saying:

Entrepreneurs like Morse, Edison and Disney created the 20th century, as Gates and others are now creating the 21st. I don’t know if much can be done to moderate the cultural changes they will enforce, but citizens ought to know what’s happening and keep an attentive eye on such people.

(Postman, 1998)

Examples of the second-order (indirect or unintended) effects of technological innovation are given in Box 1.

Box 1: Second-order technological innovation

• The US government decided not to match the British and French in the development of supersonic passenger transport. The three-hour saving in travel time to cross the Atlantic would probably be used to watch television – so why not put televisions on subsonic jets?
• Should governments (i.e. taxpayers) pay for the development of supersonic transport that would benefit mainly movie stars, rock musicians and corporate executives?
• Cars have solved transport problems but have led to pollution; antibiotics have reduced disease but have weakened the immune system; and television has extended communication and entertainment but has changed the nature of political discourse.
• The Luddites recognised the advantages of mechanisation, but also saw that it would damage their own lives. The use of ‘Luddite’ (someone who resists technological change) as an insult ignores the reality that technology produces losers as well as winners.
• Email has transformed the nature of communication – many children today have never written a letter.
• Technological innovation empowers some and disenfranchises others. So television favours those who master the soundbite over those who engage in detailed debate. The digital age has created a new class of the electronically illiterate, who may become as disadvantaged as other illiterates.

(Adapted from Postman, 1998)

Activity 6

You should allow 0 hour(s), 30 minute(s).

Think of an innovation relevant to you through your work or in your role as a consumer. Answer the following questions in relation to that innovation:

1. What benefits has it brought to consumers, and how do these compare with the benefits brought to the organisation that introduced the innovation?
2. Can you identify any second-order effects that have arisen from this innovation?

We have chosen as an example the introduction of desktop publishing (DTP) technology, and have answered the questions as follows:

1. We suspect that the benefits to consumers have been considerable, by making high-quality publishing largely independent of scale and greatly expanding its accessibility. There have also been benefits to the software manufacturers, but these have been shortlived, as newer technologies replaced the older ones and competition has restricted the price and margin potential for the manufacturers.
2. There are several second-order effects, many of them derived from the de-skilling that the new technology brings about. The positive aspects of this – greater access, lower costs, speed – are offset in part by the negative effects on the traditional craft industries of printing and design. The winners are the customers of traditional printers, and those organisations that have rapidly developed the skills in the new technology. The losers are the craft printers and those who have been unable or unwilling to develop the skills to operate the new technology.