The Innovation Revolution (A Time of Radical Transformation)

Note: This article is updated at The Innovation Revolution.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …

It’s not A Tale of Two Cities.   It’s a tale of the Innovation Revolution.

We’ve got real problems worth solving.  The stakes are high.  Time is short.  And abstract answers are not good enough.

In the book, Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of building Breakthroughs, Larry Keeley, Helen Walters, Ryan Pikkel, and Brian Quinn explain how it is like A Tale of Two Cities in that it is the worst of time and it is the best of times.

But it is also like no other time in history.

It’s an Innovation Revolution … We have the technology and we can innovate our way through radical transformation.

The Worst of Times (Innovation Has Big Problems to Solve)

We’ve got some real problems to solve, whether it’s health issues, poverty, crime, or ignorance.  Duty calls.  Will innovation answer?

Via Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of building Breakthroughs:

“People expect very little good news about the wars being fought (whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, or on Terror, Drugs, Poverty, or Ignorance).  The promising Arab Spring has given way to a recurring pessimism about progress.  Gnarly health problems are on a tear the world over--diabetes now affects over eight percent of Americans--an other expensive disease conditions such as obesity, heart disease, and cancer are also now epidemic.  The cost of education rises like a runaway helium balloon, yet there is less and less evidence that it nets the students a real return on their investment.  Police have access to ever more elaborate statistical models of crime, but there is still way too much of it.  And global warming, steadily produces more extreme and more dangerous conditions the world over, yet according to about half of our elected 'leaders,' it is still, officially, only a theory that can conveniently be denied.”

The Best of Times (Innovation is Making Things Happen)

Innovation has been answering.  There have been amazing innovations heard round the world.  It’s only the beginning for an Innovation Revolution.

Via Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of building Breakthroughs:

“And yet ...

We steadily expect more from our computers, our smartphones, apps, networks, and games.  We have grown to expect routine and wondrous stories of new ventures funded through crowdsourcing.  We hear constantly of lives around the world transformed because of Twitter or Kahn Academy or some breakthrough discovery in medicine.  Esther Duflo and her team at the Poverty Action Lab at MIT keep cracking tough problems that afflict the poor to arrive at solutions with demonstrated efficacy, and then, often the Gates Foundation or another philanthropic institution funds the transformational solution at unprecedented scale.

Storytelling is in a new golden age--whether in live events, on the radio, or in amazing new television series that can emerge anywhere in the world and be adapted for global tastes.  Experts are now everywhere, and shockingly easy and affordable to access.

Indeed, it seems clear that all the knowledge we've been struggling to amass is steadily being amplified and swiftly getting more organized, accessible, and affordable--whether through the magic of elegant little apps or big data managed in ever-smarter clouds or crowdfunding sites used to capitalize creative ideas in commerce or science.”

It’s a Time of Radical Transformation and New, More Agile Institutions

The pace of change and the size of change will accelerate exponentially as the forces of innovation rally together.

Via Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of building Breakthroughs:

“One way to make sense of these opposing conditions is to see us as being in a time of radical transformation.  To see the old institutions as being challenged as a series of newer, more agile ones arise.  In history, such shifts have rarely been bloodless, but this one seems to be a radical transformation in the structure, sources, and nature of expertise.  Indeed, among innovation experts, this time in one like no other.  For the very first time in history, we are in a position to tackle tough problems with ground-breaking tools and techniques.”

It’s time to break some ground.

Join the Innovation Revolution and crack some problems worth solving.

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