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Mass Innovation and Disruptive Change

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the look-to-the-internets-for-inspiration dept.

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?

3 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. That's funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...

  2. True by pHatidic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  3. View from the coal face... by vik · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    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 :v)