The Role of Narrative in Innovation

One insight presented in Scott Berkun’s The myths of innovation that got me thinking was how the concept of innovation has been influenced by history-making – basically the most “romantic” ideas win out in history.  We tend to think of innovation as singular, defined “Eureka!” moments or major breakthroughs. As Berkun points out: “History can’t give attention to what’s been lost, hidden, or deliberately buried; it is mostly a telling of success, not the partial failures that enabled success.” (23)  More than anything, history-making is about narrative building, it is how we make sense of the past and make meaning of it as well by memorializing it in short vignettes.  While Berkun’s point is that this make or break view of innovation may blind us against making continual connections between smaller, often unrelated, breakthroughs,  (which I think is an extremely valid point) I also wonder what role this narrative building plays in the innovation process.  Berkun also points out in the book when talking about the evolution of technology, certain technologies or innovations (in his example automobiles) succeeded not because they were the best solution for the day but because of a complex web of circumstances that included economic, environmental and cultural factors.  The intriguing implication that other, perhaps better solutions could have prevailed leads one to wonder how advertising, marketing, aligning ideas along cultural values or in other words, narrative building played into the fruition of certain innovations.  I guess what I am trying to say is that the idea matters, but selling that idea is often just as important.  People often must be convinced of the value of an idea before adopting it.

To continue with the automobile example and better explain what  I mean, I want to offer up this Foreign Policy magazine article by Amy Jaffe, the associate director of the Rice University Energy program and fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.  Part of a series called “21 Solutions to Save the World”, Jaffe argued that in order for the U.S. to become truly energy independent, the American car-buying public must convert to electric-powered vehicles.  This article represents her expert opinion of the “best” solution to solving America’s energy crisis but is slight in its policy and intellectual implications.  However, considering the likelihood of such a conversion reveals the very political process of innovating.   I once had the pleasure of sitting in on a brown bag session with Dr. Jaffe were she addressed this very article.  Can this technology be harnessed?  Definitely, she said, but only when it becomes a priority to automobile makers, the government and the consuming public.  Who will/or can drive this innovation?  It’s complicated, she replied, as there is a very interconnected relationship between government, business and the public.  It can be driven by public need, the government can offer attractive subsidies to the car manufacturers and advocate the construction of the necessary infrastructure or car manufacturers can compete with one another to take advantage of what they see as a promising market niche.  Whatever force or combination of forces drives this change, people must first be convinced of the worthiness of such a conversion.

2 years ago 

The link between copyright and creation

As we have discussed previously in this class, laying down an appropriate incentive structure is crucial to developing a culture of innovation.  Within a group or organization, incentives can come in multiple forms: peer recognition, greater responsibility, personal satisfaction of tackling a challenge, and money, to name a few.  How then, when talking about copyright and creation, can policy makers move beyond a incentive structure that seems so solely tied to money?

The inherent problem with this framework is that while art has always been tied to money (and power), either through patronage or through commodification, the link between money and the impetus to create is more tenuous and almost impossible to prove.

As earlier Christenson readings cautioned companies against becoming too focused on the bottom-line because it locks them into a pattern of behavior that can lead to missed opportunities, the current copyright system (since 1976)  also seems locked into a mental mode that centers around the image of the individual as the lone creator whose ideas exist in a vacuum of his our her own making and therefore should have sole ownership and compensation of that work.  However as Vaidhyanathan lays out in his interview with Stay Free! Magazine, the copyright holder is rarely the artist his or herself.

“we should not romanticize copyright as an author’s right.  It starts out that way, but that’s not the whole story”.

So, there are two issues to consider: how do you provide the appropriate incentive to create, and how to you compensate creation.  I think that when copyright was originally enacted, these two issues more tightly overlapped or aligned, but with the proliferation of digital technologies, these two issues have diverged.  Before, creators were just as likely to work by themselves, as they were within a group of people and had more control over the “vacuum” in which their creation emerged.  They worked within a specific industry, within a specific group, with specific works, often confined by geography and access and therefore could more confidently claim themselves as the sole owners of their creation.  However, through digital technologies, access to other works, people, and ideas is boundless and has changed creation into an act that almost always is built upon something else or is collaborative.  There can be less of a claim of control over the act.

Copyright is solely concerned with the second issue – compensation, and while the reason for copyright is to provide a financial incentive to create, Vaidhyanathan makes the crucial point that copyright really serves as an incentive to market and distribute work, not necessarily to create.  As Vaidhyanathan sees it: “If copyrights disappeared tomorrow, there would still be poetry but there wouldn’t be Star Wars”.

Ultimately, Vaidhyanathan concludes that we are really dealing with an outdated bundle of policies that don’t really address the issue of providing incentive to create.  In reading the article, I began thinking that access itself could be the greatest incentive to spurring creation.  For example, early blues musicians had access to rich music tradition and history that they could draw upon, remix, and create something new.  Currently, we are laying in a place a system that is allowing the removal of works from the public domain through high protection of digital copies.  While creators should be compensated for their work, copyright might not be the appropriate avenue for compensation if it ultimately stifles the ability to create in the first place.

2 years ago 

The Role of Narrative in Innovation

One insight presented in Scott Berkun’s The myths of innovation that got me thinking was how the concept of innovation has been influenced by history-making – basically the most “romantic” ideas win out in history.  We tend to think of innovation as singular, defined “Eureka!” moments or major breakthroughs. As Berkun points out: “History can’t give attention to what’s been lost, hidden, or deliberately buried; it is mostly a telling of success, not the partial failures that enabled success.” (23)  More than anything, history-making is about narrative building, it is how we make sense of the past and make meaning of it as well by memorializing it in short vignettes.  While Berkun’s point is that this make or break view of innovation may blind us against making continual connections between smaller, often unrelated, breakthroughs,  (which I think is an extremely valid point) I also wonder what role this narrative building plays in the innovation process.  Berkun also points out in the book when talking about the evolution of technology, certain technologies or innovations (in his example automobiles) succeeded not because they were the best solution for the day but because of a complex web of circumstances that included economic, environmental and cultural factors.  The intriguing implication that other, perhaps better solutions could have prevailed leads one to wonder how advertising, marketing, aligning ideas along cultural values or in other words, narrative building played into the fruition of certain innovations.  I guess what I am trying to say is that the idea matters, but selling that idea is often just as important.  People often must be convinced of the value of an idea before adopting it.

To continue with the automobile example and better explain what  I mean, I want to offer up this Foreign Policy magazine article by Amy Jaffe, the associate director of the Rice University Energy program and fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.  Part of a series called “21 Solutions to Save the World”, Jaffe argued that in order for the U.S. to become truly energy independent, the American car-buying public must convert to electric-powered vehicles.  This article represents her expert opinion of the “best” solution to solving America’s energy crisis but is slight in its policy and intellectual implications.  However, considering the likelihood of such a conversion reveals the very political process of innovating.   I once had the pleasure of sitting in on a brown bag session with Dr. Jaffe were she addressed this very article.  Can this technology be harnessed?  Definitely, she said, but only when it becomes a priority to automobile makers, the government and the consuming public.  Who will/or can drive this innovation?  It’s complicated, she replied, as there is a very interconnected relationship between government, business and the public.  It can be driven by public need, the government can offer attractive subsidies to the car manufacturers and advocate the construction of the necessary infrastructure or car manufacturers can compete with one another to take advantage of what they see as a promising market niche.  Whatever force or combination of forces drives this change, people must first be convinced of the worthiness of such a conversion.

The link between copyright and creation

As we have discussed previously in this class, laying down an appropriate incentive structure is crucial to developing a culture of innovation.  Within a group or organization, incentives can come in multiple forms: peer recognition, greater responsibility, personal satisfaction of tackling a challenge, and money, to name a few.  How then, when talking about copyright and creation, can policy makers move beyond a incentive structure that seems so solely tied to money?

The inherent problem with this framework is that while art has always been tied to money (and power), either through patronage or through commodification, the link between money and the impetus to create is more tenuous and almost impossible to prove.

As earlier Christenson readings cautioned companies against becoming too focused on the bottom-line because it locks them into a pattern of behavior that can lead to missed opportunities, the current copyright system (since 1976)  also seems locked into a mental mode that centers around the image of the individual as the lone creator whose ideas exist in a vacuum of his our her own making and therefore should have sole ownership and compensation of that work.  However as Vaidhyanathan lays out in his interview with Stay Free! Magazine, the copyright holder is rarely the artist his or herself.

“we should not romanticize copyright as an author’s right.  It starts out that way, but that’s not the whole story”.

So, there are two issues to consider: how do you provide the appropriate incentive to create, and how to you compensate creation.  I think that when copyright was originally enacted, these two issues more tightly overlapped or aligned, but with the proliferation of digital technologies, these two issues have diverged.  Before, creators were just as likely to work by themselves, as they were within a group of people and had more control over the “vacuum” in which their creation emerged.  They worked within a specific industry, within a specific group, with specific works, often confined by geography and access and therefore could more confidently claim themselves as the sole owners of their creation.  However, through digital technologies, access to other works, people, and ideas is boundless and has changed creation into an act that almost always is built upon something else or is collaborative.  There can be less of a claim of control over the act.

Copyright is solely concerned with the second issue – compensation, and while the reason for copyright is to provide a financial incentive to create, Vaidhyanathan makes the crucial point that copyright really serves as an incentive to market and distribute work, not necessarily to create.  As Vaidhyanathan sees it: “If copyrights disappeared tomorrow, there would still be poetry but there wouldn’t be Star Wars”.

Ultimately, Vaidhyanathan concludes that we are really dealing with an outdated bundle of policies that don’t really address the issue of providing incentive to create.  In reading the article, I began thinking that access itself could be the greatest incentive to spurring creation.  For example, early blues musicians had access to rich music tradition and history that they could draw upon, remix, and create something new.  Currently, we are laying in a place a system that is allowing the removal of works from the public domain through high protection of digital copies.  While creators should be compensated for their work, copyright might not be the appropriate avenue for compensation if it ultimately stifles the ability to create in the first place.

The Role of Narrative in Innovation
The link between copyright and creation

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