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Mass Innovation and Disruptive Change
bart_scriv writes "The new head of MIT's Media lab argues that societal advances, previously the domain of a small group of individuals, will now become the product of millions of people due to changes in education and technology. He also offers advice to would be start-ups and entrepreneurs, including an argument against instrumentalism: 'The successful will look for fundamental disruptive change.'" There sure do seem to be a lot of creative people doing projects on the web today. What do you folks think of this?
The new head of MIT's Media lab argues that societal advances, previously the domain of a small group of individuals, will now become the product of millions of people due to changes in education and technology.
That's funny... because it seems to me that in the last 20 years education has only gotten worse and worse.
The head of MIT's Media lab is himself specifically in that small group of individuals that is traditionally associated with societal change. And moreover he's buried far enough inside that group that I don't think he can see that America's educational infrastructure outside MIT is just plain crumbling to the point where the group of individuals equipped to change the world (or at least America) is if anything shrinking...
Right now we are going through another bubble I think with venture capital. Too many stupid ideas are getting funded. It pains me to see these new Ajax sites launched every day and to spend five seconds looking at them and know they have no chance of ever succeeding. At least they fail cheaply.
I think the bottleneck right now is much more on the creativity and business side than it is on the hardware/software side. If you want to be a tech entrepreneur than learn business skills, you can always find someone to help you with hardware and software. Of course you need to understand what is possible, be able to tell the difference between a good and bad programmer, etc.
Isn't this coming from the director of the laboratory whose only successful prodcut is a glowing green ball that changes colors with the stock market?
Seriously, what kind of disruptive innovation has ever come from the MIT Media Lab? Companies have put money in there for years and gotten nothing in return.
By the way, looking for disruptive vs. incremental technology changes is complete and utter nonsense. Entrepreneurs look for where they can make money. There's plenty of money to be made in all kinds of places in our economy, ranging from mom and pop restaurants all the way up to the latest and greatest gizmo. Game changing technology might be interesting or it might not. The road is littered with companies who changed the game and then were crushed by other players.
Money is made with smart market analysis that asks what do people want and how much are they willing to pay. Throw in a way to keep competitors out, and you have the beginnings (but not everything) of a good startup whether you make new fangled ball bearings or web pages. MIT Media Lab not required.
There have always been a lot of creative people doing projects on the Web. Ideally, the Web is the province of Creative People, delivering their creative goodness directly to the consumer and bypassing the middlemen, and the tech stuff is transparent, in the background. Nobody goes to a show to see the stage crew, although we know they are there -- somewhere -- and respect their contribution.
Of course, the geeks built the Web, and were the first to know it was there and what it was capable of. As a result, the content of the early Web tended to be content of interest to geeks. That changed, happily, until the geeks developed streamlined means to manage and post new content, giving birth to 'blogs,' which are again dominated by geek topics. This too, is leveling.
Now, an awful lot of creative people like to call themselves "geeks" cuz it's (still) trendy, and an awful lot of geeks like to call themselves "creative" cuz they believe it will get them laid. But the hardcore shakers and shamen in each camp know enough not to dilute their efforts by dabbling; they just count on each other to work their respective money-attracting mojo.
Yes, I believe we're at the early stages of adopting the internet. Kids already know how to use the internet better than their parents. As people grow up using the internet there will be extrodinary breakthroughs of capabilities. Currently, there are only 1 billion (of the total 6 billion people on the planet) that use the internet. Almost all these people have dial up connections and are still relativly inexperienced. The don't read Slashdot or digg.com or go to flickr.com or myspace. They don't have a blog at blogspot. Imagine when we have 6 billion people with high speed connections that do all these things and more. The impacts on society will be incredible and this WILL happen.
No Sigs!
As part of a team engaged in a disruptive Open Source hardware project (http://reprap.org/ I have to say that the guy is almost right. Yes, advances come from large teams, but they need a small, dense and enthusiastic core to start the ball rolling.
:v)
What is essential for a project to spread, other than being useful to the users, it the ability to replicate it on demand. With software, this is pretty easy. With hardware it is currently more difficult, but we're fixing that.
What astounds me is the inability of the commercial world and economists in particular to recognise that there are ways of creating disruptive technologies without being limited by the need to make a profit. I can see a two-teir world developing before my eyes, with the commercial sector deriding anything that is not profitable on the grounds that it'll never spread. Software is so far the only exception to this pseudo-rule, but within 2 years the same will start to apply to hardware as multi-material 3D printers become available for under $1,000.
Vik