The Global Ideas Blog

Diversity Powers (Social) Innovation

An excellent article by Scott Page on the Centre for American Progress site, entitled Diversity Powers Innovation. The concepts are not new here (we find much of it in Wisdom of Crowds-type stuff....) but well-expressed and interestingly phrased. If you haven't thought of a problem-solving team as a "bundle of perspectives and heuristics", then you will after this. The conclusion is as follows:

"Innovation provides the seeds for economic growth, and for that innovation to happen depends as much on collective difference as on aggregate ability. If people think alike then no matter how smart they are they most likely will get stuck at the same locally optimal solutions. Finding new and better solutions, innovating, requires thinking differently. That’s why diversity powers innovation."

The key bit of this for me is "collective difference" rather than "aggregate ability"....I think that sums it up very well: making the most of the differences each of us is bringing to the table (and understanding how they can complement and collaborate), rather than a simple gathering of "smart" people....

Dumb crowds and innovation lessons

The Global Ideas Bank was lucky enough, when it started off as a website, to have the backing of a pretty amazing web guy: Flemming Funch, who set up and ran the New Civilization Network. Flemming now lives in the south of France, and blogs under the marvellous title of Ming the Mechanic. Always worth a read, particularly when Flemming gets on a (blog) roll, as he is at present.

So a couple of great articles via Ming the Mechanic:

- The Dumbness of Crowds is a great little piece about the difference between "collective intelligence" and "dumbness of crowds". Such as:

"Collective intelligence" is a pile of people writing Amazon book reviews.

"Dumbness of Crowds" is a pile of people collaborating on a wiki to collectively author a book...

For all those (such as myself) who got carried away by the wisdom of crowds....... (see sundry previous blog posts!)

- Ming also points to a great article on Innovation Tools (which I foolishly stopped taking the feed from) asking their readers what they learned about innovation in 2006; lots of good and interesting stuff here too.... such as:

"Passion is the linchpin to innovation. "Innovation" is a big fat generic concept in most corporations... like "God" or "life on other planets" or "empowerment." Unless the individuals within a given corporation have a genuine sense of urgency, personal ownership and passion for innovation, nothing significant will happen. Innovation begins within the mind of each person. Corporate initiatives that don't awaken the basic human instinct to innovate within each individual will be doomed" - Mitch Ditkoff

Making your idea stick

 

 

Guy Kawasaki has a great interview/discussion of a new book which should be on the bookshelf of all inventors/entrepreneurs in the coming year: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (NB - not yet available in the UK, but coming soon...). It's clear that it has connotations/lessons for marketers and brand creators, but there is also no reason why much of this couldn't apply to social inventors, and other types of idea.

 

 

Apparently, there are six key principles to an idea becoming 'sticky'; as the authors put it:

"For example, JFK’s idea to “put a man on the moon in a decade” had all six of them:

1. Simple A single, clear mission.

2. Unexpected A man on the moon? It seemed like science fiction at the time.

3. Concrete Success was defined so clearly—no one could quibble about man, moon, or decade.

4. Credible This was the President of the U.S. talking.

5. Emotional It appealed to the aspirations and pioneering instincts of an entire nation.

6. Story An astronaut overcomes great obstacles to achieve an amazing goal."

So there you go: SUCCES (sic) will come nice and easy....I have to say I respect the authors for not simply adding a seventh principle beginning with an S....
There are some other interesting points as well. A few quotes to chew on:

"Bottom line, there’s less evangelism than there probably should be."

"People in their 40s have MySpace pages. That can’t be good and it might leave room for a hipper niche player."

"No one teaches engineers or entrepreneurs or chemistry professors how to make their ideas stick"

"Our book was written for a type of problem, not a type of person. The problem is this: When you have an important idea, how do you communicate it in a way that has impact? How do you construct a great idea?"

All good stuff: and worth trying Guy K's 'stickiness aptitude test' as well. What score will you get in your SAT?

Spring into 2007 with some new ideas

Springwise has listed its top 5 of non-profit / cause-related ideas from 2006. Worth a look, even if we have covered some of the previously.

And for a more wide-ranging, deep-thinking take on what lies ahead, check out the Edge question of 2007:  what are you optimistic about? and why? Richard Dawkins, GIB patron Brian Eno, Cory Doctorow, Craig Venter, Steven Pinker and many more give their answers online. Makes for interesting, occasionally enlightening, and slightly uneven reading. But well worth the time.

Your Name on Toast

What better way to start the New Year than with an utterly ridiculous/brilliant piece of web goofery/charity work. As the name suggests, Your Name on Toast takes the Million Dollar Home Page idea of 'paying for creative advertising on a site that will get lots of traffic' and does this through writing your name....on toast. It is also promising to donate all its profits to charity which makes it a socially-beneficial idea. I can feel the spin-offs/copycats coming already.....