Innovation? What’s that?

Introduction

For a very long time now there’s been a lot of talk about innovation. But there hasn’t been a lot of talk about innovation.

What is innovation? Why do we value it so much? Should we?

One would think so. But at PRC we don’t want to take anything for granted. So, in this entry, we’ll take a quick look at innovation. Since our objective with this entry is to simply break the ice and look at the subject of innovation long enough to give us something to think about, a quick look should be enough.

Part I

To put it bluntly, it’s not at all uncommon to hear people talk about innovation without knowing what innovation is. They use the word assuming they know what it means. But, when you ask them to say something specific about it, not a few react like this.

So, what is innovation?

A search on Google (that bastion of world-historic truth) offers a variety of word-salads each covered in a thick dressing of either gibberish, jibber-jabber or gobbledygook. For example:

Innovation is creating new value and/or capturing value in a new way. Value is the key word, stressing the difference between innovation and invention. The definition is simple, easy to memorize and also good enough to encompass innovation in all the value chain. ... Ideally, the innovation builds a new market.

Just about everything all of the entries on the first page say about innovation is written like that. Not only are they all pretty much limited to business and boring as hell, but they don't tell us a lot.

Meaning, you’d never get the impression from reading any of the entries that innovation is an essential and unavoidable part of human behavior itself. It’s just assumed that we all know what innovation is and that everyone should value it because it’s good for business (though not necessarily good when used for challenging billionaire business interests of a global nature).

So, according to Google, Lord and Master of the Universe, innovation creates and captures value ("captures"? What is it, a wild animal?). Ok. So, what is value? Well, Google tells us it's something that has worth. Alright. What is worth? Well, worth is something that has value. We seem to be getting nowhere.

Ah, but Google also tells us that something has value and worth because it's practical. Now we're getting somewhere. Or are we?

After all, what might seem practical could turn out to be only "practical." Or, very practical by all accounts, but not entirely.

For example, cell phones. They certainly seem practical and have most definitely made a handful of people a whole lot of money. But they also play a part in distracted deaths, as they're called.

That's when compulsive texters can't wait till they get home before sending a text. So, they send one from their car and end up either killing themselves or someone else they don't even know.

In fact, they account for 10% of traffic deaths involving teens. And of course those deaths can be attriburted to an addiction to cell phone use, or perhaps a better word than use would be abuse.

Or, how about cars? At the time they exploded onto the scene they were certainly considered to be created value, or value captured, something of great worth and immensely practical.

Then cities were soon jam packed with them to the point where they had to create suburbs, those outlying districts of a city where the major pastimes are addiction and adultery. Then came drunk driving, air pollution and, speaking of addiction, oil-dependency, and last but not least, the aforementioned distracted deaths.

How pratical!

But let's not stop there. How about the Internet itself, or, better yet, how about Google? Both innovations, both very pratical. But would anyone say without any hesitation that both are all good?

Google virtue signals with its dumb motto Don't Be Evil at the same time it enthusiastically and unapologetically censors points of view it doesn't like. Naturally, it justifies such censorship by referring to those points of view as examples of disinformation.

A powerful institution engaging in censorship! How innovative!

And now we're back to our question, What is innovation?

We'll attempt to answer that question in this entry. But for now, perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that when something is considered innovative it is considered innovative in the judgment of someone, or some group of people. Meaning, when an individual or group likes a certain innovation they call it creatuve, when they don't like an innovation they call it an error, or mistake, or something bad that should never have happened.

So, in as much as what you don't know might hurt you, maybe it's time to reconsider what we think we know about innovation.

In keeping with our approach here at PRC, which, for those of you just joining us, is behavioral, we’ll offer an answer from that perspective. So, without further delay, here we go.

Part II

First things first, and just to be clear, we are not talking about creativity. Who isn’t creative? The sooner we abandon any talk about creativity and focus instead on innovative behavior the better off we’ll be. Why? Well, because our focus here is on behavior. That’s why. And the reason for that is because behavior is observable. When we put aside the mysterious entity creativity and speak instead of innovative behavior it becomes immediately obvious that everyone innovates, all of the time.

Innovations become noticeable only when they’re so big you can’t miss them, or, when they’re considered offensive, or when they are highly valued because they solve an important and difficult problem a culture faces, a problem that up until that time was extremely resistant to any workable solution. And, of course, innovations are noticed when they happen in situations that involve people who recognize and value innovation itself.

But those are just the obvious examples. The main point for us in this entry is, as we said, everyone innovates, all of the time.

The source of innovation can be reduced to two things.

1. All behavior is patterned.

2. The patterns are responses to demands made upon the individual, or group, by their environment.

The ultimate source of innovation is human imperfection.

The explanation for this is because the transmission of cultural patterns involves a communication process, and no communication process can ever be perfect and final. Which is something anyone in a relationship knows, whether that relationship is a marriage, parent-child, teaching-learning, etc.

That's why happiness in any relationship depends, in part, on accepting the imperfections involved in communication itself.

Certainly one reason for this is that no one, not even the most educated person in the world, has all the information about their culture (or themselves) they need at any given moment, or the time to convert that information into knowledge, or the self-possession to absorb, organize, arrange, and apply it all, in order to make the absolutely perfect decision about any complex problem they’re trying to solve. No one’s mind is ever that clear about anything. In short, human beings make mistakes.

And making mistakes is what makes human beings the most interesting species in the world. Because that imperfection is what makes learning, change, and growth, not only so essential to our survival, but to enhancing the quality of life as well.

This is why heaven and all political utopias (same thing) that claim to be able to solve all of our social and economic problems are ultimately so boring and uninteresting. Because heaven (and utopia) is a place where no one makes mistakes, where no one learns, or innovates. After all, what is the point of learning and innovation when the believers already have all of the questions and answers and are therefore perfect and never make mistakes?

Believers in heaven and political utopia are enough to make one blush for the human race. But there's no question that the ones who have done the most damage, especially in the last 200+ years, are the ones who believe in political utopia.

In any event, human imperfection is also what makes understanding, compassion, and humility, such valuable qualities.

And, like any quality, they are difficult not only to achieve, but to maintain over long periods of time. Mostly because, given our nature, they’re constantly being put to the test. But, above all, and in keeping with today's entry Innovation, Human imperfection is what makes innovation absolutely unavoidable.*

*That being the case, one is inclined to raise serious doubts about the intellectual, social and moral qualities of those who claim to value innovation but insist on shaming others for making mistakes.

Why?

Because any new demand upon the individual or group can only be met with a pattern we already have in our behavioral repertory. No matter how we may modify it by ways we judge to be appropriate - but often turn out not to be - there is always a gap between what the interaction of the environment demands from us and what our patterns can do.

And it’s exactly this gap between situation and pattern that leads to new adjustments - depending on our flexibility!

This is why Flexibility itself is one of our values here at PRC.

Because, if the situation is one in which we can produce or innovate no successful pattern of behavior, the pattern we will use won’t work. Now, whether that inappropriate pattern is called psychosis or religious illumination or political fanaticism (same thing) depends upon the culture we’re a part of, upon its sanctions and status systems. The purpose in these cases is to simply reduce the tension produced by the disorienting effect of the problem we happen to be facing at that moment.

We may have reduced the tension, but we have not solved the problem, because we lacked the flexibility needed to do so.

Note: Though the above is certainly true, as we shall see in an upcoming entry, far more is involved.

Here we can see the connection between innovation and problem-solving. Or, in the example above, the lack of it.

Part III

When one studies subjects such as cultural history and anthropology (as they used to be taught way back when in the glory days of pre-Woke Insanity) one is engaged in studying patterns of human behavior and their related problems, transmission, and innovation. Culture is patterns of behavior.

Historical documents and artifacts are merely the deposits of that behavior. So, anything innovative is the consequence of novel kinds of behavioral patterns, or, of innovative behavior.

One very interesting trait of human behavior - or culture - is cultural convergence. We’ll have more to say about this fascinating subject in a later entry. For now, we’ll just say this.

Whenever any situation presents us with demands we can’t meet we become aware of an insufficiency in the possibilities of our behavioral repertory. We feel disoriented and in need of help.

In short, a problem has emerged.

To feel, perceive, and identify a problem are the first steps needed to overcome that sense of disorientation and deprivation.

The environment may present an ambiguous situation, one which calls for two quite different and mutually exclusive patterns of behavior. For example, a hostile elite might present its host population with a situation that calls for a choice between freedom or tyranny. The problem then emerges in the form of a need to make a decision as to which behavioral pattern one should use, obey and submit or stand and deliver. In other words, fight or flight. The key point here is that we often have to do this before the insufficiencies of our decision are fully realized!

Otherwise we’ll never act. That doesn’t mean we don’t engage in solution-postponement so we can gather data. Not at all. It just means that we can’t put off decision-making forever, and that, sometimes, of course, we do have to act sooner than later.

The basis for our actions are the decisions we make. Our decisions come into existence only when choice is offered.

So far, so good. But now the process is working the other way. Because the hostile elite in the above example are making the decisions for us without our knowledge and consent. Not good.

Whenever freedom of choice is denied a very real problem has emerged. And when enough people to form a critical mass recognize this situation a culture crisis inevitably breaks out.

And that is the position we’re in today.

Whatever we decide to do we can be reasonably sure that at best we’ll barely avoid making a bad mistake. That might be regrettable, but it’s the human condition, so there’s no point in complaining about it. Besides, mistakes make us human.

However, it’s also worth pointing out that sometimes we make the right decision. Breakthroughs do happen. Though, it’s true that we never know if we’ve made the right choice until after we’ve acted on it, it’s also true that we have to act in order to live, and that learning from our actions enhances the quality of life.

Embrace The Fucked-upness, indeed.

Part IV

Before concluding, let’s offer some answers to the questions asked at the beginning of this entry.

What is innovation?

Innovation is about changing patterns of behavior that no longer work in the situations in which we use them. In short, innovation, or innovative behavior, is about problem-solving.

Why do we value it so much?

What’s not to value about solving problems? But, to offer more of an answer, we value innovation because innovation is central to solving a problem that can easily turn into a crisis that we might not be able to solve at all if we wait too long.

Should we value innovation?

If we want to live? Yes. But that valuing should be conditional.

We should value innovation to the extent we know something about it. Meaning, that innovation can be as counterproductive and as dangerous as anything we value unconditionally.

This is why, if we are to truly value innovation, we need to demystify it. In other words, we need to resist the temptation to romanticize innovation the way we often romanticize creativity.

Any individual or group who has learned to truly value innovation has done so by seeing it as an unavoidable aspect of human behavior. This is the reason why, in this entry, we have talked about innovative behavior as opposed to creativity.

In short, anyone who has a deep knowledge of, and extensive experience with, genuinely innovative behavior knows that when it comes to the real thing, all hell is about to break loose.

All hell is always breaking loose whenever we innovate.

This explains why for centuries the word innovation was used pejoratively. Because the word innovation was synonymous with violation. And for a reason. Innovators violate our expectations.

Which is another way of saying that innovators break the rules.

But to break the rules you must know them and know them well.

We can not live without innovation. But we also can not live without stability. We need both, though the needs of both are irreconcilable. This is the beating heart of the human paradox.

Conclusion

As we said in our second entry one response to a culture crisis is cultural transcendence. It should now be obvious exactly what cultural transcendence is - an example of innovative behavior.

With innovation, violation becomes transcendence.

The culturally transcending individual looks for, recognizes, and accepts, the irresolvable tension between stability and innovation, between idea and reality, between theory and data, between individuals and institutions, between us and the world.

In fact, this tension is exactly where the culturally transcending individual finds their freedom and becomes who they are.

In facing life's difficulties we earn our victories.

Another and related example of innovative behavior is found in the aforementioned cultural convergence. That’s when two or more people unknown to each other come up with the same solution to a particular problem their culture faces - independently of each other. They identify the problem independently and independently arrive at the same solution.

We’re always innovating and in more ways than one. And the most important innovations are not economic, they’re individual and cultural. It’s time global business recognizes that it’s simply one part of something much bigger than itself - Humanity.

Once again we see the need to move Beyond Technology.

We'll explore the extremely interesting and highly relevant human trait known as cultural convergence soon. But first let's answer the four questions we asked in the Introduction to Relationships.

Until then!