Over the past weeks I’ve been wondering about what thrives Innovation and how to motivate it. Of course some of the design-processes discussed over and over again here at CPH127 is part of the answer, but not the holy truth.
Years back I had a career in Information Technology – web1.0. It made me proud explaining what the internet was all about, learing people and companies where the @ could be found on the computer.
Nowadays it’s a complete another ballgame – and only using the internet for 1-way-publishing is not the way for survival.
Today is about decentralization – look at the emergence of the “Social Software Landscape”, look at open Source, look at Firefox, Flock, Flickr and those kind of applications. Look at the explanation on what is going on and you will see that one major thing is needed – shift in mindset – NOW.
6 comments so far
Hans,
I think you’ve got the key issue here, it’s decentralization of course, but more than that it’s translated into “empowerment” for the individual innovator in an organization or by themself.
niti
This idea of the power in decentralization, openness, and relinquishing control seems both compelling and (recently) topical.
http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/11/give_it_away_gi.html
http://niblettes.com/blog/2005/10/05/relinquishing-control/
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/oct2005/id20051017_303716.htm
http://dsp.jpl.nasa.gov/members/payman/swarm/
To be honest, I’m very excited about the new directions this trend will push design. But I think there is a gigantic “it depends” when it comes to decentralization.
For instance a few years ago Cemex nearly pulled itself back from the brink of disaster with a radical new decentralized dispatch strategy. It worked in this situation.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.07/cemex.html
However there are many cases where a high degree of centralized coordination and integration across the value networks are the only to get things done. Apple is neurotically obsessive about control and it gave us the iPod. The early movie studio system gave us Casablanca, Metropolis and the Wizard of Oz, yet was highly structured with studio owning certain genres and all the technical and artistic talent to product movies. And the innovation of credit cards came as a result of incredible coordination and centralization.
So while I definitely share your enthusiasm for decentralization, I think its important to qualify the enthusiasm in order to sort out under what circumstances decentralization is the right innovation strategy to follow.
Hi Hans,
good point you raise. Interestingly the issue of empowerment and the role blogs and design play in this “game” have been the central point of my latest conference talk at the WorldBlu Forum in Washington, DC. You can the link to the slides at:
http://www.designthinkinginstitute.com/2005/10/29/worldblu-forum-2005/
I think I will add some speaker notes at a later stage in order to make the story comprehensible for those who didn’t attend.
Cheers, Ralf.
Hi “niblettes”,
while I appreciate your comments here on CPH127 I was just visiting your blog as well. Blame me stupid, but I can’t find any contact details on your blog neither can I comment there as well; which I would love to.
If you’d like to contact me just go over my blog and you’ll find my contact info there: http://www.design-management.de
Cheers, Ralf.
Niblettes a.o.
I agree that the “power” of decentralization depends on the circumstances – of course – and you’re right when saying that not everybody will succeed in doing so in every aspect of their business.
But what I like to raise is a discussion on the effects of decentralization in design and innovation and what impact it will have – has – on leadership.
Take a look at this presentation - http://www.jimcarroll.com/flash/idealoop.htm and you must agree with me that Jim has a point. What I want is to point out is that ”Sharing” is the new way of survivial in business - maybe not the only one, I know :-). And the radical shift came in the early 90th…..
So let’s start act on it - not only the tech-companies……
If the context you’re talking about is ideas, then I couldn’t agree more. Ideas seem to be the perfect material (for lack of a better word) to benefit from a Metcalf’s law and decentralization should amplify the network effect.
Looks like we’re already starting to act on it–here, our own modest blogs, and elsewhere.