Living with Anti-Innovation

Our organization is undergoing a re-organization. It is an opportunity to rethink, or retrench. Retrenching is the comfortable solution, because it is feels somewhat the same after the dust has settled. It may seem different from the outset, but it is fostered by assumptions that were prevalent before the reorganization.

This is not because we don't have smart people working on this. It is not because we don't want to change. It is because we, like most people, want to define the future by what is in front of us.

I had a conversation yesterday with an instructor who teaches painting. We talked about the digital and the analog. He made an excellent point -- that digital interfaces encourage small movements; typing on a keyboard, using a graphics tablet that is defined by the size of sheets of paper. In his world, you can involve the whole body in the process if you want, and he argued that this was better because it matched the way we are made.

Once you accept this premise, it becomes a slippery slope. Why do we use little keyboards. Sometimes it is portability -- but what about our desks? We use tools that conform to technological assumptions, and we make them work, because we are so extraordinarily able to adapt.

But, we define things based on what came before, until someone breaks the mold. Afterwards, there is the hindsight that allows us to see that "of course! it was a logical progression!", but at that point of flux -- it might seem a little disturbing, or even scary.

I think at these times, there are many forces in place that do not see themselves as "anti-innovation" -- but again, in hindsight, that is what they are. Things can't change, because that is too messy! It works well enough as it is, says the steamboat operator to the airplane pilot.