Innovation of Innovation

Innovation²

By Arnold Beekes

It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in introducing a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents – who have the laws on their side – and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. ~ Machiavelli, The Prince

Innovation of Innovation

Innovation is not easy. If we look at the numbers it shows that it is hard to get innovations into the mainstream over a long period of time.

• 9 out of 10 startups fail.

• 7.5 out of 10 venture-backed startups fail.

• 2 out of 10 new businesses fail in the first year of operations.

HBR asks: Is American innovation sputtering? The data suggests so. Productivity growth in the United States, which is powered by innovation, has been decelerating. Total factor productivity grew substantially in the middle of the 20th century, but started slowing in 1970. This slow growth continues today, with productivity lower than it was more than 100 years ago.

Their research finds that the U.S. innovation ecosystem has splintered since the 1970s, with corporate and academic science pulling apart and making application of basic scientific discoveries more difficult. Their analysis also shows that Venture Capital (VC)-backed scientific entrepreneurship has helped to bridge this gap between corporate science and academia — but only in a couple of sectors. These findings suggest that if we want to see greater productivity growth, we need to explore alternative ways to translate science into invention.

This shows that innovation itself is not easy and doesn’t produce the required results - yet.

Most past and current innovation address singular problems/challenges rather than the convergence of challenges that we are seeing now.

Many people expect that especially technology innovation will be the snake oil, the miracle that will get us out these crises.

I think that is an unrealistic expectation.

Yes, we urgently need innovation, but innovation itself needs to be innovated in order to play its essential role in Saving Our Society. The challenges we face require coordinated and integrated innovation, globally.

What is needed is a harmony of innovations that strengthen each other.

It is sad that in innovation we waste of lot of time, effort, energy, talent and money. Many smart guys and girls are working on the wrong projects, projects that won’t address the key problems in society. On the contrary, much work in innovation adds to the problems instead. 

However, if you collaborate you can work much faster and be much more effective.

We rapidly need to start with the innovation of innovation itself! 

The best innovation manifests in times of shit (personal, global). 

Let’s declare that we are at war with global challenges and act now, like in a physical war.

Why

• There is a lack of innovation itself. 

Many leaders in society, either from government or large multinationals, have no experience in innovation, have other        priorities and perceived time constraints. They are focused on protecting the status-quo, not on disruption.

• There is a lack of prioritization. 

What is needed is a global prioritization of innovation. What are the most urgent problems that need innovation? By prioritizing, also the resources can be effectively assigned. It would be a massive step forward if we align global innovation efforts with the Global Challenges.

• There is a lack of coordination. 

All over the world there are startups and other initiatives working on the same problems and similar solutions, without consulting each other. For example, the storage of clean energy or stopping food waste. If those efforts are coordinated we can move much faster and save money and resources.

• There is a lack of integration. 

By working on innovation in isolation, one innovation might negatively impact other areas. E.g. the increased use of electric vehicles (EV) drives the need for more electricity. But if that electricity comes from fossil fuels, the overall impact is negative. The IEA’s most recent report found the steepest ever increase in global electricity demand last year was stoked by a 9% increase in coal use compared with the year before. 

• There is a lack of cross-pollination

Innovators are not learning from other industries/areas of expertise and nature.

• There is a lack of speed

Currently it takes years to take an idea into implementation. The (convergence of) challenges require that we radically speed up this process.

Conditioning

Conditioning has led to a highly exaggerated image and narrative around startups and innovation. Startups are supposedly just there to make their owners and investors into millionaires and billionaires as quick as possible. The impact on the users and/or the environment is neglected. Here are some examples that give startups a bad rap.

• PR

Investment money is used to manipulate public opinion, including regulators. E.g. Uber reveals, for the first time, how a $90m-a-year lobbying and public relations effort recruited friendly politicians to help in its campaign to disrupt Europe's taxi industry. 

• Big Corporations

They scout (via incubators/accelerator challenges/prizes) and buy startups to limit competition, to acqui-hire, or want to look modern and innovative. However, most startups lose their edge once inside big corporations, and their founders leave (like Instagram founders leaving Facebook). 

• Pricing

By giving services for free (Google, Facebook) they use your data. Or through their VC investments they can apply very low prices to beat the competition. They can afford to even lose money. Uber had in 2019 a loss of $8B; Amazon retail in the US operates at a loss, they make money via AWS.

• Psychology

They use mind control techniques to make you click more on their platforms (social media). They promise a great future for their users, which never happens (see Theranos). They say that it only takes hard work to become a millionaire. They say that you can be anyone and anything that you want to be – which is not true.

• Use

They say that their application will set you free, while at the same time they (have to) share their data with intelligence agencies, the army, government, and the police.

• Numbers

They focus on quickly getting a huge number of users (active or not active, real or unreal). They might even include a large number of bots, like became obvious in the Musk/Twitter deal. Or Enron that faked a lot of their numbers. 

“There’s a 0.00006% chance of building a company that will grow to be worth more than a billion dollars. Even if you do raise money and sell a company or take it public, your median time to doing that is probably 49 months. Assuming there are three founders, your median expected payoff would be $300,000 each — that’s the equivalent of $73,000 a year. And the probability of making nothing is 67%. ~ David Friedberg

Goal

To scale up the speed, effectiveness, and impact of innovation – as required by the convergence of crises.

Definition

We all have a different definition of innovation and a different process, therefor we are heading in different directions. The focus is on iterations instead of innovations. A new design of the headlights of the car is not innovation. A new packaging for mayonnaise is not innovation. Most innovations are just improvements like new versions of smartphones. 

I suggest to use this definition:

Innovation = To develop and implement meaningful new products or services 

From Silos to Synergy

If we don’t change our perspective, if we continue with the current silo-approach, we might very well make things worse in the world. See the example above with EV’s using energy from coal.

Innovation requires an ecosystem perspective. Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. Everything is connected. Relationship is the norm. For example, you can’t switch and entire country like Sri Lanka to organic farming without understanding the impact on all areas concerned. 

The ecosystem perspective is needed towards challenges as well as towards technology. 

There are single challenges that we must address, but much more urgent are convergence of challenges. For example an estimated 850 million children — or 1 in 3 children worldwide — live in areas “where at least four climate and environmental shocks, such as severe drought, extreme heat, flooding, air pollution, and water scarcity, overlap”.

Look at the war in Ukraine which, except for all the atrocities of war, is leading towards a migration crisis, a food crisis in Africa, energy shortage in Europe and inflation all over the world.

We also need to have this ecosystem perspective on technology.

There are stand-alone technologies that can help innovation, but likely better results can be achieved by convergence of technologies. For example, an EV combines different technologies, from the battery to A.I. (especially for self-driving cars).

There is also a convergence of challenges and technologies that we need to address.

That same EV has a battery which contains minerals that are very scarce and disposing the battery is very polluting. An EV produces EMR that has a negative impact on the health of the driver. The electricity that is being used should be renewable and not from a coal plant.

Therefor we urgently need a synergistic perspective instead of a silo perspective. 

It is therefore mandatory for any innovation to do both an interdependence analysis as well as an impact assessment.  

The work

We need to drive innovation – in a coordinated way - from the top-down AND from the bottom up.

We do this by addressing the underlying root causes, rather than treating the symptoms.

• Real economic, social, and environmental change requires changing the operating systems that dominate the world, including the governance system itself

• Real personal change requires re-education. 

• Real innovation requires collaboration and integration.

Before we get started

We urgently need to help people recover from the crises (war, food-shortage, energy-shortage, Covid, job-loss) that they are experiencing. This is especially the case among young people. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health challenges were the leading cause of poor life outcomes in young people. As many as 1 in 5 US children aged 3 to 17 have a mental, emotional, developmental, or behavioral disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Now, that crisis has grown even bigger. Symptoms of depression and anxiety for children and adolescents have doubled during the pandemic. Of public schools in the US, 70% reported an increase in the number of children seeking mental health services during the pandemic and many have struggled to meet the needs of those students. We see an increase in aggression, and shootings. There are long waiting lists for professional psychological health (this is the case from the US to The Netherlands to India).

Action is urgently needed. Mental health programs should be a mandatory part of any school and university program.

The traditional way of dealing with mental health disorders has a focus on drug treatment and talk therapies. As there is a global shortage of psychologists and psychiatrists, we cannot ask them to follow up. I suggest that we use and re-train coaches and trainers from the private sector. It doesn’t need to take long to prepare them for this task of recovery. 

Simultaneously the use of psychedelics for mental health disorders should be legalized. I know there are controlled studies and trials happening in universities, but we are dealing with an emergency, so we have to take the risk and move much faster. 

At the same time, we must be open to the use of psychedelics to expand our imagination, to leap-frog innovation. 

As the poet W.B. Yeats once put it, “Imagination has some way of lighting on the truth that reason has not.” Our vision has a veil from years of conditioning that limits our views. We need help to remove those veils. Psychedelics can help in that process. 

Or a VR experience called Isness-D. Four key indicators used in studies of psychedelics, the program showed the same effect as a medium dose of LSD or psilocybin according to a recent study in Nature Scientific Reports.

Like any farmer can tell you, you first have to prepare the soil before you can put in the seeds. Currently the soil (i.e. the mindset of citizens) is not prepared for dealing with an avalanche of innovation that radically changes the way we learn, live and work.  

This is in contradiction to the current narrative which has a focus on going back to normal. People need to understand that a return to normal is not an option anymore. This is especially the case for people in developed countries. Their luxurious lifestyle has to be abandoned. 

Obviously, the situation is different for developing countries as they are already experiencing for years that their circumstances are not sustainable anymore.

In education, students are not taught how to deal with change. 

Now, people need to be trained to deal with change - on a large scale, on a daily basis.  Also, here, coaches and trainers can be re-trained to prepare people for change and innovation. This action needs to be combined with the re-education effort as mentioned in the SOS document.

Impact Innovation 

Impact investing already exists, and now we urgently need to shift from ‘normal’ innovation into impact innovation.

Innovation is the pirate ship that sails into the yacht club. Nobody likes it, but then they appreciate it later ~ Lisa Bodell

Impact innovation has these characteristics:

• Dissent is encouraged, it is a defining element. Good innovation (and progress) needs tension and mental diversity. Creativity needs constraints.  Real innovation requires dissent. Pseudo innovation requires licking heels. It is a sign of intelligence is to hold opposing views. 

The reason our institutions are so broken is that they police for dissent rather than incompetence. ~ @davidsacks

• The psychology, the behavior of users must be addressed. It is assumed that everyone acts logically, which is a huge mistake. We need to enable positive and sustainable behavior change. That requires user engagement from the very beginning. As innovator you need to have a basic knowledge of neuroscience, Brain Operating Systems (BOS) and psychology, as well as a basic understanding of why people don’t like change. Immune system response (Salim Ismail) needs to be addressed

• Values are equally important as financial metrics. The culture of any startup, of any innovation should be transformed from a focus on financials into a focus on care. Care for self, others and the planet. The 'fake it until you make it' culture should be removed and replaced by honesty and facts. 

     Morality should be a driving force for innovation. 

• Innovation is both an art and a science. Incubators and accelerators mainly use checklists and prescriptions, assuming that innovation is a science. However, to a large extent, innovation is also an art where it’s success depends on unpredictable behavior of humans. Therefor artists need to be an integral part of any innovation effort.

• Learning from other industries, crafts, cultures should be the norm. Cross pollination is a crucial natural phenomenon. 

Over time, everyone at Cirque was drawing upon as many outside influences as possible, from almost every field —painting, film, music, you name it. This sort of cross-pollination, Bernard explained, was one of the keys to Cirque’s extraordinary freshness and vitality.

You get ideas from other industries (like Chef’s Table) and you get the feeling that you are not alone.  You see that they also struggle with the dominant vision/existing paradigms (like Frans de Waal for studying apes). It is tough to rebel against existing norms. 

The best ideas aren’t unique. Just 1% of successful patents introduce something truly unique. 99% of ideas build (and copy) off something else. But this is a good thing. Building on other ideas helps breed genuine innovation. ~ Sam Tatam in Nudge podcast.

• Everyone is unique. Innovation and technology must be used to enable personalization. Instead of promoting sameness and squeezing everyone into the box of one size fits all, we should accept that everyone is different. 

The great failure of mass culture becomes the diminishing importance and constant devaluing of the individual— the exact element that modern culture claims to value and constantly aims all its marketing and advertising at. ~ Michael Meade

• Target groups need to be more differentiated. Much innovation comes from rich Western countries who are most likely white, live in cities with working infrastructure. Jared Walker talks about ‘elite projection’. The people who come up with these ideas are in privileged places in society. We need to differentiate for all types of users in both developed and developing countries.

• Metrics redesign. Many VC’s put too high expectations on ventures and have the wrong metrics. The focus is solely on the money and not on social, economic or environmental impact. Mainly they are interested in exiting as soon as possible either through an IPO or sale of the company. The amount and impact of innovation should be a key performance metric for the C-level suite in big corporations. The metrics for innovation should drive and enable positive societal and environmental impact.

• Criticism is part of the game of introducing a new order of things (see the opening Machiavelli quote). You need to be able to resist the downward pull of the group (leading to mediocrity), have courage, be okay with being lonely.

“I'm so sick of being treated like a pariah by most of the media because I care about the survival of life on Earth. I'm so sick of being treated as if I'm mentally ill by other people. I'm so sick of beating my head against the wall of indifference and distraction and denial.” ~ George Monbiot

Courage is needed to defend one’s ideas in the face of staunch opposition.

• Impact innovation has at its core a planned positive impact on the economy, society and the environment. In this way many social entrepreneurs and NGO’s who have exactly that goal can be also put under the umbrella of impact innovation. Then it becomes easier for them to get the funds and attention that they need.

• Innovation is both global & local, meaning that we upfront need to define what is useful to do at a global level and what must be done at a regional/local level. We need to encourage people to be and feel responsible for their own learning, living and working. Delegation should be at the lowest possible level.

• There is no room for politics. The largest obstacle in companies and in governments as well, is still politics. 

There is no place for politics anymore in world that is on the verge of a social and environmental collapse. 

Organization

Real economic, social, and environmental change requires changing the operating systems that dominate the world. 

For redesigning the economic, social, and environmental (ESE) Operating Systems, we need 1 Open, Global ESE Hub. 

Real personal change requires re-education. 

For re-education, we need 1 Open, Global Edu Hub. 

Real innovation requires collaboration and integration.

For innovation, we need 15 Open Innovation Hubs per Global Challenge. 

These hubs are skunkworks collectives to renew the world, combining learning, innovating, and fitness (brain & body). Co-living facilities should be included, just like the Manhattan Project.

Within these respective Hubs, there is continuous interaction between

• Art (+ business) & Science

• Brain & Body

• Young & Old

• Tech & Tradition 

• Global & Regional

The Open Source approach that is currently used for coding must be extended to innovation. 

For synergy, we need 1 Global Challenge & Innovation Center.

They will set up and monitor the interdependence analysis as well as an impact assessment.  

The main focus will be on prioritization, coordination (resources and funding), and integration. 

Next steps

I cannot and don’t want to innovate innovation all by myself. We need each other. Together we need to renew the world. And we can.

Hereby I ask you to share both your feedback and your ideas for implementing impact innovation and the required organization.

Arnold Beekes

abeekes@proton.me