Crafting Innovators - 19 August 2015
What does innovation mean? To me innovation means being able to 'think outside the box', but outside the box thinking has become a cliche. No one really knows what it means anymore, and today I will talk about what it means to me.
Innovation is being able to imagine a world that does not exist but so many of us today lack imagination. If you ask people how they view the future their ideas are very much influenced by the movies they watched or stories the read. There is a shortage of truly original ideas.
Henry Ford said, "If I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse," and it's true, because so very few people have truly mastered the art of outside the box thinking that they can go from a horse to a car. But why is this? Is it truly because creative innovators are born and the rest of us, those of us that aren't Steve Jobs, are doomed to be followers?
I think the reason why true innovation is scarce is quite simple. It goes back to Henry Ford's other quote that says "whether you believe you can or you believe you can't you're right”. It's all about Thomas Edison's definition of genius - the 1% inspiration and the 99% perspiration.
The reluctance towards innovation comes from the reality that the myth of born innovators has gone to the roots of our society so much that people have forgotten that 'outside the box' thinking is a skill you acquire not one you're born with. Creative people do not wake up in the morning and have a world-changing idea. Innovation is hard work hence the 99% perspiration rule. I give a very simple example, if you consider students that do 4 unit mass at the last year of high school - which is one of the very very few subjects in the whole of the secondary education system that requires students to think and for the first time actually think beyond the rule based approaches that they normally follow - what you'll see is that they are so unfamiliar with their own brain and how to think it's actually hilarious to watch. And they bring you a question that they spent weeks on and couldn't do. I mean you do solve it for them they think of you as an incredible genius that belongs to another world. But you yourself know that you can do this because 'outside the box thinking' is a skill you acquired through vigorous practice and then never give up attitude.
But the same way that mathematicians are not born creative thinkers do not pop out of the sky. Many of us have been told throughout our whole entire life they were just not that creative. But there are processes and sets of tools that can help us be successfully creative.
But next Thomas Edison for example. Thomas Edison created the electric light bulb and then wrapped an entire industry around it, in the same way that Steve Jobs created the iPod and wrapped an entire ecosystem around it using iTunes. Many people actually think of the light bulb as Edison's signature invention but Edison understood that the bulb was little but a trick without a system of electric power generation and transmission to make it truly useful. So he created that too. So Edison's genius lies in his ability to conceive of a fully developed marketplace and not simply a discrete device. He was able to envision how people would use what he made and he engineered toward that insight. He was giving a great deal of consideration to users needs and preferences, which is exactly what Steve Jobs did to make iPods so successful.
Edison's approach was an early example of what is now called 'Design Thinking’, So there are processes and toolkits that can help you innovate. But just like learning a set of mathematic rules will not make you a mathematician, reading textbooks about design thinking or any other innovation methodology will not make you an innovator. You can sit by the beach and watch as many people as you like swim, so long as you're not in the water yourself you will never ever learn to swim.
Steve Jobs in one of his early interviews says a sentence that I think if anyone truly comprehends its meaning it will revolutionize the way they see the world. He says "you can change the world the moment that you realize that those that change the world are no smarter than you". And this it's probably one of the most powerful sentences I have ever heard. And there will come a day that you will understand the true meaning of this and from that moment on your world will never be the same.
Funny enough I first heard Steve Jobs say this when I was about 10 years old, but my understanding of it until very recently when I met Steve Wozniak the co-founder of Apple, was like most of my university students understanding of the concept of logarithms. So my university students know the concept of logs a very well. They know it, they can use it, they can solve the most complex problems with it, but few of them really understand what it means. And the funny thing is that they don't even know that they don't know. And I finally tell them that all a log of, for example 25 base five is, it's just asking you five goes to the power of what two gives you 25, that's it. A very simple concept, one they think they know. They even know this formula up there that basically says exactly the same thing, but above all the equations and all the glittery things they have forgotten the depth of the matter. And this is exactly like Steve Jobs quote. Once you don't just know it and you truly believe and understand it, you will know that the walls of the rules in this world are not set by people that are better than you and me. That you don't have to walk in between the walls, and you can change them, demolish them, rebuild them or remove them completely. You can change the world.
Elizabeth Holmes undoubtedly knew this very very well. Broncos early death from cancer moved her to develop a way to detect diseases earlier. By her sophomore year at Stanford she had dropped out to start Thoronos? a blood testing company that some of the smartest people in healthcare think will change medical testing forever. And their magic, with a virtually painless prick of the finger, and a drop of blood elapsed can quickly run a multitude of tests. Cheaper, quicker, less pain, less blood. And if you have ever had a loved one battling with cancer you will know that this changes the lives of so many children and adults very drastically.
At age 31 Elizabeth Holmes it's the worlds youngest self-made female billionaire, but what she's done it's beyond anything money can measure. And this is a true meaning of innovation. To be able to see the world for not what it is but what it can be. To not just say that this is how blood tests are done, but to believe that there's always a better way. To be able to get rid of the mentality that the world is the way it is and you are to just align your life within the world trying to not bash into the walls too much.
Life can be a lot broader the second you discover Steve Jobs' simple fact - that everything around you everything that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, influence it, build your own things that other people can use. Once you land that you'll never be the same again. The most important thing for innovation is to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you're just living in it, versus embrace, it change it, prove it, make your mark upon it. And however you learn this, once you learn it, you'll want to change life and make it better, because it really does require a lot of improvement in a lot of ways. Whether it's eradicating cancer from the face of this earth once and for all, or coming up with a better way to take blood tests like Elizabeth did, or a better way to get from one country to the other. And this is when you can truly change the world.
And I finish with what Steve Jobs would have said "stay hungry, stay foolish”. Thank you.
How can we best educate and shape the emerging problem-solvers and paradigm shifters who’ll keep the fire of innovation alive?
This Shapeshifters reaffirms innovation as the embodiment of possibility, imagination and creativity, offering the views, insights, and inspiring work of Mahya Merzaei, Annabel Vici, and Jake Bayssari.
Presentation by Annabel Vici and Jake Bayssari