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Innovation Vitality

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Innovation although a natural response to circumstance, which can almost always be improved, still requires the application of energy. Resistance has to be overcome by doing work.Issac Newton tells us, there is an equivalence between work and energy. Humans tend to make things a little bit more complicated psychologically, for we do not have equal energy available for all tasks. For some the act of innovating is natural and involuntary, becoming increasingly effortless, as do most actions with practice.

Musicians and athletes also must practice to get so good at their playing, that it seems to become effortless, which is why wha they do is called playing. When watching master musicians or professional athletes, they make the extraordinary look easy, because they have invested so much effort and time, as to have reached a state world class jazz pianist Kenny Werner wrote an excellent book on the topic called “Effortless Mastery”.

Experienced innovators are like musicians and athletes, in that they too when in their flow zone also appear to be playing, because for them innovation has become effortless. And just as there are natural athletes and natural musicians who appear to pick up their mastery faster than others, there are also natural innovators who have something which can be measured to distinguish them, SVII calls innovation vitality.

Innovation vitality is akin to talent. When observing a young child destined to be a terrific athlete or musician, observers generally say this person has “talent” or is “talented”. When we encounter extraordinarily creative innovative people, they too have an ineffable quality about them, which can be called Innovation Vitality and it too is a talent.

We have observed that talent alone does not suffice to become world class and enter into the state where performance is at such a high level as to appear to be “effortless mastery”. Talent is simply a measure of having an easier time developing a skill. For example a child prodigy musician seems to enter a different type of accelerated learning curve than the non prodigy. Prodigies too must invest considerable energy to progress from talent to skill. It does seem like it is easier for them, which is why they are called a prodigy. They are prodigious at what they are doing.

Skill however is not the same thing as accomplishment. A talented person may need to expend less energy and do less work to become skilled but then they need to apply another large measure of energy to do the work to become accomplished. Since energy is applied both in advancing from talent to skill and then again from skill to accomplishment it is clear that effort counts more than talent as it shows up twice. His means accomplishment is proportional to the square of talent a quadratic or higher order relationship.

Enormous talent may permit a person who invests considerable energy to become an athlete or musician with what appears to be greater ease than a less talented person, they still have to invest the effort, do the work and expend the energy to get to the level where they have a skill an then they have to do it again to become accomplished and then they have to do it some more to become world class.

Some have a talent for innovation which does not get the off the hook where they can avoid the significant time and effort to move from having native talent to skill and then to accomplishment. I call this innovation talent, innovation vitality and it appears to be more present in some people, departments, organizations and other entities the others. Not everyone has the same degree of innovation vitality just as not every one has the same innate musical or athletic ability.

All of us can learn sports and music and all of us can also innovate but not all of us become skilled and even less become accomplished and even fewer reach the pinnacle called world class. It is these world class types who appear to have manifested some sort of effortless mastery but this is partially an illusion for it is very significant effort that elevates any person to the level of mastery. One contemporary statement of this is the ten thousand hour rule popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers but first identified and written about by Anders Ericsson who studied violin students in a music academy.

Although the popularized message is sometimes disputed the bottom line is even people who have talent need to invest a lot of time and this is in keeping with the notion that accomplishment is proportional to the square of effort but only linearly proportional to talent.

Lets look a little more deeply into Innovation Vitality, what it is and its are and feeding.

There are some people who are irrepressible. They seem to have a vitality or life force greater than normal. Many traditions have words for this, prana in India, chi or qi in China, ruah in Jewish culture, pneuma in ancient Greece, mana in Hawaiian culture, lüng in Tibetan Buddhism, manitou in the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and vital energy in Western philosophy.

The bottom line is if you are going to innovate you are going to encounter obstacles and if to you they look like speed bumps instead of chasms you are going to be more lily to get past whatever is in your way. Founders of companies and originators of projects do seem to have a bit extra energy and as new entities tend to take on the values and characteristics of their folders there are some companies or institutions that have innovation cultures. And they tend to have an innovation vitality of their own which can be characterized with a psychological instrument developed and administered by folks at SVII. When the founder is no longer present the innovation vitality of the culture can decline and steps may need to be taken to preserve it especially if inadequate succession planning has occurred.

Actionable Vantage Point

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Actionable Vantage Point or AVP, is a point of view from which a problem can be solved. There always exists an Actionable Vantage Point!

We will describe below how to find the AVP in a domain independent manner, which you can skip to now if desired, but a bit of voluntary context in the form of background and rationale is provided.

As accomplished as humans are, in comparison to our vast potential we are still underachievers operating nowhere near our limits. We have a long way to go as things are rarely as good as we can imagine them being. Innovation describes our natural tendency to iterate, evolve, adapt and improvise. It is a primary mechanism for realizing our potential.

DECLARATION – HUMANS ARE NATURAL INNOVATORS.
DECLARATION – MUCH INNOVATION IS INVOLUNTARILY.
DECLARATION – IF YOU ARE AN INNOVATOR, ALL PROBLEMS HAVE SOLUTIONS.

Innovation is one extremely important distinguishing characteristic of a conscious person, organization, nation or culture. For if you can innovate, you never need be stuck.

Humans are Natural Innovators

All children believe themselves to be creative, yet few adults do. Why this is so, is discussed elsewhere, but does it seem possible that we can lose forever something we were born with? Or is it more likely that things happened to us to make us forget. Innovators are simply those who either did not forget, or rediscovered within themselves that they can innovate and then got hooked on it.

When faced with a problem, it is natural to try to do something to solve it and to keep trying different things until we do. We either adapt or fail. Humanity had to evolve or die. Like it or not, these are still the rules. It is not a big deal until we wrap fancy language around it and put it out of bounds, but for business it is very clear – Innovate or Die.

Involuntary Innovation

This is why innovation is involuntary, because people and countries and companies all want to live. We do it as a matter of survival. Innovation is not something you have to tell people to do or pay them more to do, it is what we all do unless prevented. And we are certainly prevented most of the time because almost everyone is afraid of change. When you have an insight and throw some new ideas on the table it is quite amazing to see how much resistance there is. So kids who stop receiving positive reinforcement for being creative naturally, give it up when they find they fail exams or get fired for it.

For some of us who got such a kick out of manifesting what was not there before, it becomes an involuntary behavior which usually gets us in trouble and very occasionally gets us famous. But the act of innovating, creating, adapting, improvising or iterating simply feels good when there is no one to tell you to not do it, and is a survival behavior although most times it is resisted.

Those of you have been involuntary innovators have the arrows in your back and other scars to show for it, but yet you persist for a very simple reason – it makes sense and feels good. Which is why….

Innovators are Unstoppable (or all problems have solutions)
Returning to the Actionable Vantage Point, involuntary innovators have an unassailable belief.

There is no problem they can not act upon, so they never have to be paralyzed.

It all depends on how you look at things and here we take a short digression into the nature of the universe. The universe is a very big place and it is of great dimension, which has many consequences, one of which is two perfectly rational and reasonable people can can have what appear to be opposing points of view. In fact you yourself can internally have opposing points of view which is usually a good reason to stop and figure out what is what.

Here is a meta way to look at the problem. Whether the universe is simply too dimensionally vast to comprehend, or there are an infinite number of parallel universe waiting to manifest, we always have the ability to chose a point of view (POV). A perspective or a lens though which to view any given situation. In fact we often have several available to us. This is sometimes called being creative and sometimes called being wise and either way it is demanded that we adapt by making a choice which can also be called manifesting if the choice is not particularly visible to those around you. Do you bring it into being or was it already there? Well this does not matter, but the place from which you can see it can be called an Actionable Vantage Point.

The most important thing to remember, is having a bias for action is having a bias for survival and it is good to consciously know, there is a vantage point from which something can always be done.

The AVP Method

You have a problem, or a situation, sometimes called “an opportunity”. Assuming you do not know what to do (yet) or perhaps know too many different things to do, in either case the problem is the same – you stop to figure it out, and here is how this involuntary innovator does it.

1) Zoom out to a perspective far enough that the problem no longer appears to be a problem. This takes the pressure off and although it can take effort to gain detachment, it gets easier over time when you cultivate the habit.

2) Slowly begin to zoom back in to the point where you can see, at the same time, where you are and where you want to be (a potential solution). Yes this implies there is a solution to be seen, and I assume you there always is, but the key is too zoom slowly enough that you do not zoom right by it and end up back so close to the problem that you are overwhelmed by it.

…. Now here is where you may say “if I knew the solution I would not be stuck” and toss the approach away and go ahead if it makes you feel good, but the AVP does work and the secret is you do not have to know how to accomplish getting to the solution, you just have to see the solution. In order to do this you may have to have some faith that there is one. Faith is another word many people who pride themselves on being rational, do not like either so you may again be wanting to give up. However, I feel a need to point out to you that none of us are entirely (or even primarily) rational, linear and hierarchical, even though we may have adopted these beliefs to cope with just how dimensionally vast the universe is.

You may even say, “wait a minute the universe is at least causal even if it is not rational” and I would counter this is a case of reverse causality, meaning you start with the answer and then figure out what the steps to get there are.

I completely understand you may be resistant to this notion, as many of my teachers were, beginning at an early age and persisting through all of the way through decade of higher education and beyond. But I can assure you there are many of us who begin with the answer, and then figure out how we got there. And we are sometimes called inventors or composers and lot of the time we are called much worse because we tend to make things difficult for those around us until we get to the solution, when things get much easier and then people say “why didn’t you tell me what you meant?”

If this sounds like a lot more commentary than steps, let me remind you the recipe for baking anything at all can be really simple too; get water, flour and maybe some eggs, sugar and baking soda or powder, then mix them up and apply heat it until it is done. The bottom line is, it is very simple if you know how to bake and innovating is also very simple if you know how to innovate.

Separating desired results and steps makes the process less linear which permits breakthroughs to more easily occur.

To complete the process of determining the AVP, after zooming out to gain some distance, and then zooming in just the right amount, to see both where you are and where you would like to be, then you can perform the third and final step. Zoom in closer so you can see potential paths connecting the two. Choose one and start down it.

Three AVP Steps:
You are in a helicopter.

  1. Gain enough altitude for the problem to not look like a problem. (not more)
  2. Reduce elevation until you can just see where you are and where you want to be. (not closer)
  3. Hover over solution, fly toward where you are until you find a path or paths connecting the two.

This is an actionable vantage point – take action!

Harvesting Infinity

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Here is the deal. Humanity may be externally unbounded but internally well that is another thing. Although there may be all of the food, money and energy the world needs, it is not necessarily distributed in anything remotely resembling an optimum manner. And this is okay because we can make more because we can harvest infinity.

The concept of Harvesting Infinity simply means each of us is capable of obtaining or creating precisely what is needed, although I did not say all of it at same time or instantaneously. Even the richest people in the history of the world did not enough time, money and resource to accomplish what they wanted to.  And this is still true today. Even with vastly greater wealth we always seem to feel resource constrained.

If you are a culture vulture, an information junky or foodie you are in nirvana with a mind boggling number of choice and options that far exceed your ability to participate in or consume.  Never before in history has there been so much. If you have a question, there are places to ask which will yield large numbers of answers, not all good ones to be sure, but still you never have to wonder alone again.

Yet many linger living within a mental model of scarcity when they could embrace abundance. And this appears to be somewhat dependent upon geography and age. Silicon Valley is not just a place it is an attitude.  An attitude shared by a particularly prolific work force gathered from the four corners of the world.

Innovation itself can not be reduced to an algorithm – it is more about the audacity to feel unbounded. Although many other regions have tried to emulate the success of the Silicon Valley Innovation Juggernaut, and some are succeeding to a degree, there is something contagious about feeling the powerful potential of possibility. And that something, for some strange reason, is not more prevalent even in places with plenty of capital and plenty of educated people. Maybe having nice weather all of the time is a factor or maybe the track record of success is a factor, but it seems to be something more. Silicon Valley has the right attitude to create tomorrow and sometimes older regions need an attitude transplant. Did they run out of steam a generation or more ago?

In the least ten years China has somehow gotten this attitude. Perhaps it is capitalism run amok in a totalitarian state.  For whatever reason, China now believes they could and should own the world, and with that attitude they will, and are in fact well other way to doing it.  Yet New York and New England, with unbelievable amounts of talent and capital seem to be stalled in comparison. It is strange to travel around and get a sense of the innovation vitality of places and companies. Some have it and some do not.

Perhaps it is only those who feel that they have little to lose who can take the necessary chances?  Third world nations routinely pass third world nations by. They do not have more resources or education except one – attitude. If you think you can get somewhere or have to get somewhere than you can. And if you think change is too frightening to embrace than you can’t. It is really quite simple.

Anyone who wants to harvest infinity can! So if you are not yet doing this – get up and do it right now – give yourself an attitude transplant!

Sound Centric Computing

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Lets talk about the profound  impact of sound. Sound is deceivingly powerful because unlike eyelids, we do not have earlids. That means, we are immersed in a sound field 24 hours per day and seven days per week since we can not turn it off.  Constant inputs that can not be defeated eventually draw less attention than more intermittent stimuli. Why does this matter? Because engagement is needed for relevancy and no one pays attention for very long to anything deemed irrelevant. Sound has to be processed in real time for humans lack of an auditory cortex reduced the number of auditory neurons to orders of magnitude less than our visual processing systems dealing with temporal information via integration of snapshots. We can call up a visual snapshot in our memory and examine it but we can not do the same with a sound.

And what does this have to do with innovation? Sound stimulus demands a more immediate response than visual stimulus because it is more real time. It is more realtime because  although we can not see around corners, we can hear things we can to see and this has saved us from being eaten many more times in the past than seeing things we could not hear because they were a lot further way. Sound can be more local than sight.

Innovators tend to have two size dreams, initially small ones they can implement alone and eventually larger ones they need help with. And you have to raise friends before you raise money or other resources. if people do not want to spend time with you meaningful relationships are less likely to develop. This is also true for the man machine interface as well. Until sound was integrated into our digital systems they were relevant more to information processors not emotion processors and frankly most of society spends a lot more time processing emotion than information. Even seemingly rational, linear data driven folks still make most decisions based on how they feel and if they do not they are not regarded as human but machinelike.

Sound was silly more cost effective to integrate than video because much less data had to be crewed, stored and processed and the transducers involved also initially cost much less. A speaker was far less expensive than a video monitor and microphones are still less expensive than cameras. This made the evolving engagement of digital systems more dependent upon sound than sight.

But this process has not reached its ultimate destination of enabling parallel processing in computers which is one reason why more people have phones than computers and why they care more about phones than computers. For humans are social creatures who want to interact with others as a primary source of meaning creation. The bottom line is screen based computing is neither hands free nor eyes free but sound centric computing would be if it came into being which is being foreshadowed by our smart phones.

Until our hands and eyes are free we can not truly parallel process int he same way we can enter into conversation with groups of people. Sound centric computing permits the ultimate level of multitasking we crave in our relationship with the universe and with others. This is not simply replacing the keyboard with a microphone but such much more. It is an operating system that is sound centric eliminating the need for menu exploring and memorizing and forcing our digital systems to adapt to our context instead of forcing us to adapt to their generally inferior for human ones.  Emotional context tends to be more sound than visually centric.