A642.4.3.RB - The End
of Innovation
Robert Gordon talks
about the Death of Innovation and the End of Growth.
Reflect on this
presentation and compare and contrast it to your experience and the readings
from this module.
Robert
Gordon paints a scary picture of what the future of innovation looks like. [M]aybe
economic growth is almost over. There are four headwinds that are just hitting
the American economy in the face. They're demographics, education, debt and
inequality. (Gordon, 2013). Gordon says we need to offset these headwinds with
innovation. A lot of innovation. This TED Talk was 5 years ago though. In five
years, it seems that our economy is coming out of the pain of the recession of 2008-9.
We have a booming aerospace industry, auto makers are improving safety features
and fuel efficiencies on their vehicles, giving us the ability to reduce dependence
on foreign oil.
The
readings from this week’s modules emphasize the ability of people to innovate
by using creative thinking skills. [E]ffective problem solving will have you
more efficiently identify and modify the causes of a process to generate the
results you prefer. (Canfield & Smith, 2011). The innovations we need for
our future are getting harder and harder to see – as in, they are less tangible
and less obvious to everyone. We have to think harder and be more creative than
past inventors. They helped us with solid stepping stones of inventions but the
next generation of inventions won’t be as obvious. Innovation is fundamentally
fast productive learning and implementing. Fast productive learning will happen
best when it honors how the brain likes to learn. (2011).
In your opinion, what
fallacies do you see in this presentation? Can you match what we have achieved?
I think
that some of the fallacies in his presentation form around Maslow’s hierarchy of
needs. According to the website Simply Psychology, Maslow stated that people
are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over
others. Our most basic need is for physical survival, and this will be the
first thing that motivates our behavior. Once that level is fulfilled the next
level up is what motivates us, and so on. (McLeod, 2017). In the late 19th
and early 20th centuries, we were able to achieve so much because
before the onset of electricity and the internal combustion engine, we were
limited in what we could accomplish. Gordon’s examples included the historical
facts that if you wanted to read in 1875 at night, you needed to have an oil or
a gas lamp. They created pollution, they created odors, they were hard to
control, the light was dim, and they were a fire hazard. He also mentioned that
women, back in the late 19th century, spent two days a week doing the laundry.
They did it on a scrub board. Then they had to hang the clothes out to dry.
Then they had to bring them in. The whole thing took two days out of the
seven-day week, and finally, the only source of heat in most homes was a big
fireplace in the kitchen that was used for cooking and heating. The bedrooms
were cold. They were unheated. But by 1929, certainly by 1950, we had central
heating everywhere. (Gordon, 2013). The need for physical survival is part of
the first levels of the hierarchy – basic needs. This includes a warm place to
live and sleep, food and security. (2017).
In general,
people were still struggling with the first two levels of the hierarchy and
once electricity and other technological advancements were made, once we were
able to have warm and secure homes, refrigerated foods, and electrically washed
clothes, we were able to kind of take a look around and realize that we had come
a long way since we had to cart the whole family into town on a horse and buggy.
We don’t need to invent the car anymore, we just have to improve on it to the
point where we aren’t relying on oil or other pollutants. We don’t need to
invent electricity anymore, we just need to find an alternative power source
that doesn’t need coal to run it. We are in the place where we are looking at
being able to reach the third level of the hierarchy, self-actualization. (2017).
We are looking at what was invented and how to make them cleaner, leaner, and
readily accessible to everyone. Disruptive innovation doesn’t always need to be
very new…each level of the innovation pyramid offers new opportunities[.]
(McKeown, 2014)
My point is
that we are not failing to innovate. Gordon assumes that the innovations and
inventions need to be as tangible as they were 100+ years ago. I think that we
are just on the next level of the hierarchy. Things that will change our lives
for the better aren’t going to be huge skyscrapers and noisy engines. They will
be things that aren’t always tangible. Medicinal innovations will be on a nanoscopic
level rather than microscopic. The way we travel will become cleaner and faster.
Gordon said
that [t]he problem we face is that all these great inventions, we have to match
them in the future[.] I completely agree with that – we have to match and surpass
those of the past. We wouldn’t be where we are today without the innovations of
the past. But I don’t think that we’re incapable of climbing up that pyramid of
needs and finding new and better inventions in the future. New generation
brings new insight into the whole system rather than simply a part of the
system…something like 0.24% of new ideas have that capacity to deliver a new
generation of an existing system. (McKeown, 2014). I do think that we need to
figure out how to not be as reliant on the things that Mother Nature can just
take away from us with a forceful shove. Maybe that’s the problem we need to
work on – that this generation needs to solve.
References
Canfield. J. & Smith, G. (2011). Imagine: Ideation
skills for improvement and innovation today. Holland, MI: Black Lake Press.
Gordon, R. (2013). Death of innovation and the end of growth.
Retrieved from: https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_gordon_the_death_of_innovation_the_end_of_growth
McKeown, M. (2014). The innovation book: How to manage ideas
and execution for outstanding results. Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, United Kingdom.
Pearson Education Limited.
McLeod, S. (2017). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Simply Psychology.
Retrieved from: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
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