I haven’t posted anything about innovation in the last week or so because I’ve been busy making my way through the wonderful pages of Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction. 

Penned by Harvard Business School’s Thomas K. McCraw, Prophet of Innovation is an entrancing look at Schumpeter’s life and work.  I’m less than a third of the way though its 736 pages, and I’ve already learned a great deal about this subject innovation which is so dear to my heart.  It’s Schumpeter who lent shape to many of the ideas, constructs — even a worldview — which inform life here in Silicon Valley, as well as in any economic system where advancement is valued more than stability. 

I’ve been hearing from a lot of folks that this "innovation thing" has peaked.  As a fad, perhaps.  But as a way of seeing the world, let alone a pragmatic way to improve the quality of life on this planet, innovation is much more than just the hottest management trend.  What Schumpeter saw 90-odd years ago is still in force today, and though context may change, I believe he uncovered some basic truths about the way that macro and micro economic policies can create a fertile field for innovative behavior to flourish.

I love this book.

Amdextrous Magazine recently ran a wonderful interview with Ivy Ross.  The interview was done by Alison King, and I find it simply stunning.  I’ve read it many times over, and I hope you find it as interesting as I have.  Here are a few fascinating excerpts.

On the importance of meaning:

Let’s face it.  Everyone has everything.  We are not about price anymore.  Everything exists at every price level.  It’s about the connection you find with the object.

On the power of unleashing your personal design thinking process:

I had to think about my own creative process.  What I did for myself was feed myself.  I took on a question and ate absolutely everything I could.  I allowed myself freedom to explore, without restrictions, and at a really organic pace.  I was like a kid.

On the drivers of innovative behavior:

I also believe that creativity and innovation are built around trust and freedom.  Companies don’t get that.  They think it is a process.  It is really about creating trust between the people creating and the freedom to go to new places.

Go ahead, and download this PDF of the interview and give it a read.  You won’t be disappointed.

John’s Maeda’s Liu Lecture at Stanford was, as expected, excellent.

Three themes from his words and thoughts are buzzing around my head:

1. Chaos:  when we think about organizations, we want to create order, right?  Maybe.  When is chaos a desirable state of being?  Good question.  Perhaps it’s when chaos begets…
2. Variance: weird ideas are the stuff of breakthrough innovations.  If you’re not creating weird stuff, you’re not producing those sixth-sigma disasters/opportunities which light the way to new paradigms.  To create variance, you need to do stuff in high…
3. Volume: the way to create a few great things is to crank out a lot of bad crap.  As Bob Sutton says, "…the most creative people don’t have higher hit rates, they just do and make more
   stuff."

Buzz buzz.

"A beautiful side effect of making things is you start to look around
and wonder, ‘how did they do that?’; you learn to see, analyze, and
appreciate different approaches, well-made things, and clever solutions."
– Lili Cheng

oooooph.  I just took Bob Sutton’s new Flying ARSE self-assessment test, and I barely threaded the needle between unbelievable perfection and being a borderline arse.  It’s a fun little test, and a good reminder that The Brand Called You is but a fragile flower, easily damaged in liminal spaces such as an airliner.

I love the fact that Dr. Robert Sutton, esteemed Stanford tenured professor, is enthusiastically putting up quick and dirty web apps like this, the original ARSE test, and — my favorite — ArseMail.  He does them without a lot of drama, ships something quick-like, and then starts iterating them to perfection based on feedback from real users.  And he taps a system of connected mavens to spread the word.  Sounds like creating infectious action to me.  Doing cool stuff and shipping it. 

Design thinking and doing, in other words.

After just two weeks of work, CIA-KGB students launched their solutions to help Mozilla attract and retain users of Firefox.  Actually, it wasn’t really two weeks — it was eight working days and four weekend days.  As you’ll see by clicking through on the URL’s, below, each team of four students accomplished an incredible amount of work.  When was the last time you went from zero knowledge in a subject area to putting something real and working in to the world in just two weeks?  While working the equivalent of three or four other full-time jobs?  I’m amazed.

For example, the team behind My eBay Fox created an entire toolbar which enables any Firefox user to manage all of their eBay activities directly from the Firefox browser.  Plus, it gives users some additional functionality not available on the eBay website. Wow.  That’s the power of the human-centered design process driven by a multidisciplinary team capable of dealing with human, technical, and business factors.

Here they are — check ’em all out!

My eBay Fox

Firefox Got Your Back

Underdog

Firefox 4 Life

PuckFox Cup

Everyday Hero

It’s important to note that this is only a launch and not a final deliverable.  We’ll be tracking the progress and performance of each project over the next 5-6 weeks.  It will be very interesting to see how each of them evolve.

… for a few months, it’s because I’m watching all of these videos.

Hours and hours of amazing insights, stories and ideas, all over at the amazing new TED website. 

It’s a good time to be alive.