GUEST BLOG POST: Where Original Ideas Come From — Greg Satell

Editor's Note: One of the main reasons, we are posting this article is because Greg Satell is on point on the nature of and result of communal effort in the emergence of scientific revolution. Additionally, he links scientific revolution with the unstated fact of access to learnings and mastery of fellow workers of knowledge. Newton standing on the shoulder of giants is becasue he learned what they had discovered.
Of course, Satell makes his point from a Western civilization-centric perspective. However, as we would demonstrate with later posts, the failure of African and Asiatic "revolutions" to take root and thrive is as, a matter of fact, a direct result of the absence of similar communal cross-pollination and accumulation of knowledge and learnings. In the case of Africa, some African tinkerers, and yes, Africa did have its own tinkerers, never even had their findings recorded and transmitted outside their immediate locale.

Where Original Ideas Come From

Revolutions are seldom solo efforts.  Isaac Newton was the greatest scientist of his age and not one known for his false modesty, but even he had to admit, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Thomas Kuhn made a related point in his classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. He argued that precedence in science is somewhat arbitrary—a matter of perspective rather than fact—because new discoveries are rarely tied to the work of just one person or team.

Yet, while very few ideas are truly original, there are exceptions.  Sometimes an important new idea seems to have no precursor or precedent, but springs forth whole from a single mind and completely alters our perception of how the world works.  Although these are rare, they have a lot to teach us about how to become more creative ourselves.

The Idea That Launched Western Civilization

In the history of the world, very few ideas rival the impact Aristotle’s logic.  In terms of longevity, only Euclid’s geometry is in the same league.  While there was healthy philosophical discussion before Aristotle, it was he that took it out of the realm of mysticism by creating a system to judge the internal consistency of particular statements.

At the core of Aristotelian logic is the syllogism, which is made up of propositions that consist of two terms (a subject and a predicate).  If the propositions in the syllogism are true, then the argument is true.  Much of our information technology today is based on Aristotle’s original idea.

Amazingly, Aristotle’s logic survived nearly 2000 years—until the late 19th century fully intact—when some flaws emerged having to do with a paradox in set theory. The effort to resolve these problems led to Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and eventually to the Turing machine that launched the computer age.

A Theory Of Information

During World War II, Claude Shannon spent his time developing and breaking codes for the military (and struck up a brief collaboration with Alan Turing).  He was known to his colleagues as quirky, quiet and brilliant, but no one was quite prepared for his 1948 paper, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, which created the field of information theory.

The basic idea was that information is separate from content.  Shannon proved that information can be broken down into quantifiable units he called binary digits (or bits for short), which represented two alternative possibilities, much like a coin toss.  Add up the coin tosses and you arrive at the total amount of information required to communicate an idea or instruction.

In retrospect, it seems like a relatively simple concept, but its impact has been positively enormous.  It touches everything we do in the digital age, from storing files on a computer drive to talking on a mobile phone to compressing videos.  Every time you watch a video on Youtube, you have Shannon to thank for it.

Engineering At Nano-Scale

When Richard Feynman stepped up to the podium to address the American Physical Society in 1959, he had already gained a reputation as both an accomplished scientist and an iconoclast (during his tenure at the Manhattan project, he became famous for his safecracking and pranks).

Yet few could have predicted that, in less than an hour, he would create a completely new field—now known as nanotechnology—before their very eyes.  Starting from a simple suggestion about shrinking an encyclopedia to fit on the head of a pin, he extrapolated to molecular machines and radical new medical therapies.

While today nanotechnology is a thriving, multibillion dollar industry, back then even a very simple computer took up an entire room—and a large room at that.  Feynman singlehandedly imagined not only the possibility of engineering on a molecular scale, but even some of the techniques to make it possible, many of which are still in use today.

Feynman soon went on to other things and played little part in the further development of the field he had conceived, but his little talk remains one of the most dazzling bursts of creative thought in recorded history.

The Common Thread

Thomas Kuhn, who I mentioned above, became famous for his concept of paradigm shifts. He pointed out that even great scientists get stuck in a particular way of thinking about things, even when their theories no longer match established facts.  That’s why it is usually an outsider—or a new generation—that tends to break new ground.

Truly original ideas rarely come from diligently working within one field, but rather from synthesizing across domains.  And therein lies the secret to how groundbreaking new ideas like logic, information theory and nanotechnology come about.  Aristotle, Shannon and Feynman were stars in their fields, but also ventured outside them.

Aristotle reportedly wrote over 200 works, across fields as diverse as biology, physics, ethics, politics and aesthetics.  Outside of mathematics, Shannon was an inveterate tinkerer, successful investor and even developed systems to win at the gambling tables.  Feynman, was an early computing pioneer and published an important paper on virology.

All of this poses an important questions for how we run our businesses:  Why do we expect bright young graduates to enter a particular field, spend a few years learning to master it and continually repeat that experience over an entire career?  Is groundbreaking innovation even possible if we spend our time perfecting our ability to do rote tasks?

In order to create new paths, we first must venture outside of those that we have already travelled.

Greg Satell is an internationally recognized authority on Digital Strategy and Innovation. He consults and speaks in the areas of digital innovation, innovation management, digital marketing and publishing, as well as offshore web and app development. His blog is Digital Tonto and you can follow him on Twitter. 
Originally published in Innovation Excellence 

GUEST BLOG POST: Russia Case Study – Innovative Activities And Skills

Inspirational Quote

Leonid Gokhberg and Valentina Poliakova, National Research University – Higher School of Economics, Russian Federation

With the transition to a knowledge-based economy, innovation has become a driving force for economic and social change. It is already more than just a factor in the production of goods and services—it has become a form of mass awareness of both innovation and its implications.1 In this central role, successful innovation requires the population to obtain a higher level of education, to be more creative, and to boost their ability to perceive essential achievements in science, technology, and innovation (STI) and implement those in daily practices. Progress today therefore depends not only on an economy’s level of development in STI, but also on the depth of its penetration into society as well as the intellectual potential of the population, its competence in generating and applying new knowledge, and its ability to adapt to qualitatively new trends of STI development.

Population plays multiple roles in innovation.2 It acts as the subject of production, a role that requires not only basic STI knowledge but also an ability to continuously perfect professional and technical skills. As consumers, people perceive and use new products and technologies.

As citizens, they may engage in discussions of critical STI issues and of respective government policies. A lack of necessary skills in any particular part of the population becomes an obstacle to the creation and distribution of new technologies and social practices throughout society.

Because technological changes occur rather quickly and on a global scale, such a lack puts nations that have not carried out a timely transition to the new technological structure at risk of being left behind.3

For this reason, national governments seek to learn more about the types of skills needed for innovation and about efficient ways to engage the population in innovative activities, including, in a broad sense, the generation of innovation and its implementation, social recognition, and dissemination. This chapter provides some insights on human capital inputs into innovation on the basis of relevant surveys (see Box 1).

Readiness to innovate

People perceive innovation at both macro- and micro-levels. While the former is associated with a nation’s economic and social progress, the latter is connected to the quality of an individual’s life. The balance of these interpretations indicates social legitimation of innovation in the ‘lifeworld’ where ‘people both create social reality and are constrained by the preexisting social and cultural structures created by their predecessors’.4 The case of the European Union (EU) is exemplar: the average ratio between the two groups that clearly recognize the importance of innovation for both economic growth and personal lives is 1:1 (42% and 43%, respectively) (Figure 1). The picture for the Russian Federation is rather different: it demonstrates a substantial gap between the perception of innovation as a source of economic growth (39% of respondents in 2011) and its actual impact on daily life (17%). Even though the first group has nearly tripled during 2009–11, the second group remains stable.

Further to the work of Inglehart (1997), we suggest that such discrepancies between perception and impact assessments correlate with an economy’s position on a transition curve towards a post-industrial, innovation-based economic model. The percentage of respondents who understand the economic value of innovation—that is, its effects on the competitiveness of companies and their products—in the Russian Federation is two- to threefold lower than the EU average. The gap with countries notable for the highest shares of innovating companies in industry, such as Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Sweden, is even greater. In those EU countries with minimal scores of innovation activities in industry, such as Lithuania, Bulgaria, Latvia, and Romania, appreciation of the economic value of innovation is lower than the average by 10–20 percentage points. In other words, the larger the shares of innovating companies and allied employment, the more operational the abovementioned population’s function as producers of innovation. Ireland and Portugal, which have high rankings for their industry innovation indicators, have been exceptions in this regard: their populations’ disappointment, which is a result of the influence of the recent economic downturn despite the innovativeness of industry, has been translated into assessments similar to those of Eastern Europe.

For the Russian Federation, despite the yet-insufficient impact of innovation on daily life, the overall tendency of public opinion regarding innovative products looks rather favourable. During the last decade, the share of ‘technological enthusiasts’—those who actively exploit novelties reached 50%; another 12% were represented by the ‘forced users,’ who are motivated to use new technologies and methods by job requirements. Only a marginal stratum (5%) are still frightened by modern technological equipment (Table 1).

Children have become a strong factor affecting technology diffusion, a fact explained by its deepening penetration into the contemporary lifestyle. However, nearly one out of eight respondents remains isolated from technological innovation—a warning signal reflecting the quality of life in certain population groups.

Four types of respondents can be distinguished according to their attitude towards technological novelties: ‘admirers’ (9%), those who respond ‘positively’ (65%), those who respond ‘indifferently’ (16%), and those who respond ‘negatively’ (5%). The first group is rather narrow and is represented mostly by men (61% of all admirers), the younger generation between 18 and 35 years of age (67%); one-third belongs to a higher-income category (compared with 16% for the overall sample); and 28% of admirers are university graduates (vs. 21% among all respondents). Such an attitude is an attribute of a specific lifestyle that is not generally widespread. The polar opposite groups offer quite a contrast: those who are either indifferent to innovation (e.g., do not use modern technological equipment in daily life or are not able to identify themselves with any survey statements) or who are even negatively motivated (i.e., frightened by technological novelties) are most frequently women, older than 55 years, and of poor social strata. Low income and conservative attitudes obviously hamper dissemination of innovative products.

The middle group—the positive users of innovation—is the most common and comprises two-thirds of the Russian population. These users are typical mainstream consumers;5 their proportion can be interpreted as an important indicator of social demand for innovation, and is in fact a focal point of modern innovation policies.6 The diffusion of positive attitudes reveals the increase of the population’s receptivity to innovation. Subsequent changes in social behaviour caused by the recognition of the impact of innovation on economic growth and openness to novelties will stimulate the market supply of technologically advanced products and services as well as public engagement in new practices enabled by the latter.

Innovative behaviour: Skills and activities

For analytical purposes, we divide participants in innovative activities into three basic categories: ‘innovators’, ‘team members’, and ‘users’.7 Each category is notable for a specific set of skills that plays a crucial role in each stage of the innovation cycle (see Box 2).

According to the Higher School of Economics (HSE) survey, innovators—those who have been engaged in initiating and/or implementing improvements at work (launching new or modifying existing products or services, technologies, business processes, etc.)—amounted to roughly a quarter of the sample population (27%). However, only 60% of them (or 16% of the total sample) were identified as successful innovators who achieved their own desired goals. Their distinctive feature is that they exhibit the widest range of relevant skills among all the actors:

• Successful innovators are the most active in browsing professional information on the web (66% of respondents in this group); reading STI literature (68%); attending exhibitions and conferences (43%); and studying information about competitors, consumers, and/or suppliers (46%).

• They are technologically advanced because they are studying new professions (83%) and learning new work techniques (86%) and equipment (69%).

• They are notable for achieving the highest scores in e-skills: 75% of successful innovators use search engines (compared with 60% for the whole sample); 67% send e-mails with attached files (vs. 50%); 58% are able to install new devices (vs. 41%); and 47% use specialized software (vs.33%).

• In addition to strong cognitive skills, they are best equipped with the knowledge of business processes and are experienced in team building and steering, developing enterprise strategies, marketing, and external communications.

In terms of personal qualities, successful innovators, to a large degree, exhibit entrepreneurship, leadership, self-confidence, and creativity (Table 2). Interestingly, unsuccessful innovators have similar psychographic profiles, but their skill range is more restricted. This similarity implies that the innovative potential of an individual is not an instinctive feature, and essential skills for innovation can be learned. The same is true for personal qualities, or ‘soft’ skills.8 National education systems are therefore motivated to transform formal curricula and teaching techniques and to promote life-long learning aimed at supporting the innovative patterns of a population’s behaviour and attitudes.

Successful innovators are accompanied by skilled employees (team members) who contribute to developing new ideas (15% of respondents). The percentage of efficient team members whose innovative projects have been implemented is even lower—7%. These workers are comparable to innovators in their skill profile, though it is narrower: their e-skills are less advanced and their professional duties are subjected to in-house operations. Even the efficient team members typically visit exhibitions or conferences (33%) or participate in strategy planning, fundraising, and communication activities less often than the successful innovators.

Such team member employees are conscientious assistants rather than leaders: their core personal qualities include a proactive attitude and self-confidence, although they lack leadership, creativity, and risk propensity. Efficient team members are somewhat older than innovators (44 vs. 41 years on average) and less frequently have a university diploma (56% vs. 69%, respectively), but they are better skilled than their inefficient colleagues. This finding provides additional evidence of the impact of training on technological capabilities and the innovative potential of firms.

The third important group engaged in the implementation of innovation unites new knowledge and technology users. It covers almost half of employees (48%) and is divided into two subgroups: ‘active users’ (22%) and ‘passive users’ (26%). Active users include those who have upgraded competencies during the last five years. This is the youngest group among all respondents, while the passive users are the oldest. In terms of core competencies, active users stand far behind both the innovators and the team members: they are insufficiently motivated to use innovation and less ambitious, with weaker leadership, creativity, and risk propensity qualities, but they are hard-working and tolerant. Such characteristics allow younger members of this subgroup to advance their position (by, for example, moving into the group of team members or even to become successful innovators) in the course of improving their professional qualities and developing their careers.

Beyond the abovementioned categories, 10% of employees with tertiary and vocational secondary degrees are not engaged in any innovative activities. This group is the least skilled and least well adapted for innovation, and its members usually occupy lower positions and perform the jobs that do not require special education. A large proportion of them have qualifications that do not meet the needs of the labour market. Their lack of self-confidence and creativity hampers learning and their ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

Policy implications

Surveys of public attitudes towards STI and public understanding of it shed light on the linkages among social values, skills, and innovation. These linkages have to be taken into account by national governments when designing evidence-based policies aimed at building public trust to be shared among different parts of the society. No single approach to such a complex task can work in every instance, and a one size-fits-all model is insufficient when applied to different countries. However, some successful practices are worth considering.

The Strategy for Innovative Development until 2020, adopted by the Russian government in

December 2011, centres around promoting innovation culture, improving allied competencies, creating a positive image of innovative entrepreneurship, increasing the societal prestige of STI activities, and developing an innovation-friendly environment. An earmarked President’s Decree of May 2012 urged all governmental agencies to ensure the coordination of sectoral policies and programmes with this document, which consequently allowed a comprehensive action plan as a whole-of-the-government policy to be established.

The primary component of this action plan is the reform of education, with the goal of supporting the development of innovative skills and personal qualities from early childhood. The plan is envisaged to upgrade education programmes by placing particular emphasis on modern information and communication technology (ICT)-enabled techniques and information resources, enlarging public support for kindergartens and schools, and establishing necessary outreach to parents and raising their awareness about the benefits of innovation. An infrastructure that helps to identify particular talents of students early and to promote those talents through individual advanced education services is being developed in collaboration with leading universities. The training of qualified teachers is given particular attention, and certain measures are being taken to reconsider respective education standards for teacher training.

Government-supported federal student Olympiads in mathematics, natural and social sciences, and information technology take place every year, and the winners are accepted by the best national universities. Tertiary education reforms include offering college-level applied baccalaureate degrees that combine fundamental knowledge with advanced technological skills in specific areas, stronger integration of courses in management and entrepreneurship into university programmes (especially for engineering), and strengthening universities’ innovative infrastructures (with technoparks, business incubators, technology transfer centres, spin-off firms, etc.) and cooperation on research and development with companies.9 Training in innovative entrepreneurship has also become a key priority for multiple life-long learning programmes and networks supported by universities, venture companies, industry, and regional authorities.

Large-scale inclusive innovation policy actions have been implemented at national and regional levels to broaden access to new technology and combat social exclusion. Several government programmes envisage funding to promote e-government public services, high-tech health aid and telemedicine, and Internet penetration to remote areas. An important role in promoting innovative culture is played by innovation-development institutions—the Russian Venture Company, RUSNANO, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, and a few others—which together have created a joint task force for popularizing innovation. The task force provides subsidies to STI museums, exhibitions, and media; organizes contests for individual innovators; and supports the innovation projects of young inventors and start-up communities. Information centres in sensitive high-tech sectors (such as the 17 centres established by the nuclear energy corporation Rosatom in the areas of its enterprises’ presence) contribute greatly to the communication of STI knowledge to the general public and the popularization of science education among children. Another successful example of promoting innovation is the national Science Festival initiated by the Moscow City Government in 2006. Since its inception, the Science Festival has spread to 70 regions and involved more than 500 organizations—universities, research centres, innovating companies, museums, and so on. The Festival enjoyed over a million visitors across the whole country in 2013.

Conclusion

The population’s engagement with innovation requires greater attention from policy makers and from society at large. The findings analysed in this chapter suggest that, in most cases, people recognize the importance of innovation for socioeconomic development, although such an appreciation is not always coupled with intensive penetration of innovation into individual lifestyles. A large part of the population remains isolated from technological advancements and uninvolved with any innovative activities. This isolation is explained by social barriers and the lack of personal attitudes, skills, and abilities needed to master knowledge and technology.

This mixture represents a societal mindset,10 reflecting the actual status of innovation-related values that embody people’s active involvement with the social environment and its improvement by finding better solutions for specific situations at work or in everyday life. At the individual level, taken together with a composite of skills and personal qualities, it determines the role of a person in innovative processes and his or her intellectual and material progress that can result from seizing opportunities for life-long learning. Groups of the population that do not participate in the implementation and consumption of innovation are at risk of being left behind by social exclusion and subsequent backwardness. This may occur because of a lack of means and adequate skills, but it may also be deliberate because of poor self-confidence and an inability to adjust to a changing environment. All these factors can significantly hamper innovation processes and, consequently, mark a space for inclusive policy actions. Popularizing innovation and allied novel practices aimed at upgrading competencies and developing an innovation-friendly environment are also important components of boosting competitiveness. Another critical element is the modernization of education systems so that they will ensure the development of knowledge, innovative skills, and personal qualities (such as entrepreneurship, tolerance, self-confidence, leadership, creativity, activeness, and risk propensity) from early childhood.

Given the changing nature of innovation and the long-term character of public awareness and trust building processes, the policies that address these areas have to be adaptive and continuous, and their efficiency will, to a great extent, determine the global competitiveness of nations.

Culled from 2014 Global Innovation Index. ALL REFERENCES ARE IN ORIGINAL PUBLICATION.