When I started this blog, I wanted to investigate how innovation works at the intersection of society, business, and technology. More than four years later, after 132 post and over 130,000 words, it's time to think about depicting this intersection, or at least giving a visual impression of what it's like.
It's no surprise: for problems that have been around for a while, we usually develop certain structures to deal with them efficiently. Think about structures as organisations like companies or research laboratories, or processes like quality assurance or even the scientific method. Each of these established organisations and ready-made processes are designed for a purpose: to solve a specific known problem. And that's what … Continue reading How our innovation structures deceive us
... or more precisely, where did the idea of growth come from? That's one of the questions I've been fascinated with for a long time. And reading Joel Mokyr's recent A Culture of Growth, I feel like getting closer to an answer. Before and after the Industrial RevolutionWith the benefit of historical hindsight, and at a high … Continue reading Where did growth come from?
There's a lot of talk about the Digital Revolution and the effects it had, has, might have. Let's take a step back to put things into perspective: Could it be that this revolution is a lot larger than we usually think? Are we currently experiencing the beginnings of a major transformation not only of our technological base, but of the very … Continue reading The Third of the Grand Revolutions
The work of Geoffrey West and his team is truly fascinating. In their cross-disciplinary research on complex adaptive systems, they looked for common underlying principles that could be applicable to biological systems and social systems alike. Of course I'm particularly interested in West's observations on social systems like cities and companies; and the different roles they play in innovation. Today, … Continue reading Cities, companies, and innovation – An emerging narrative
understanding innovation 