Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Invention, innovation, and the arts

The May issue of MIT Technology Review (okay, I read weird stuff) is all about invention -- the brain-flexing, rule-bending process of creating something radically new. Throughout the issue, the articles repeatedly make the distinction between 'invention' and 'innovation,' and warn us not to confuse the two. According to economist Joseph A. Schumpeter, 'invention' is the birth of new ideas; 'innovation' is the transformation and bundling of those ideas into marketable products and services; and 'diffusion' is the distribution of those products and services across markets.

When you bridge those terms from technology to artistic expression and experience, you can see a similar trinity of types in what artists and arts organizations do: 'invention' is the creation of radical new ways of saying and ways of seeing; 'innovation' is the preparation and packaging of those ideas to connect to an audience; 'diffusion' is the final delivery of that innovation and the economic models that keep it flowing.

When seen this way, you could argue that the massive growth in arts and cultural activity in the United States over the past 50 years has been about innovation and diffusion, rather than true invention. Building and blending creative forms invented centuries ago (theater, opera, orchestral performance, and such), creative people have found new innovations in how to bundle and present these forms to wider and more diverse audiences, while funders, nonprofits, universities, and others have built a new infrastructure to distribute them across the country.

This innovation and diffusion in the arts has been a glorious thing, to be sure, allowing more people access to more creative experiences in more places...in small towns and big cities. But what if we stepped back to ask how we might increase invention in the arts -- completely new ways of seeing, saying, and being -- rather than innovation? Then, it becomes essential that we know the difference. According to one column in the MIT issue by Michael Shrage (free registration required for access), that difference is fundamental and complete:

The simple truth is that the economics of invention are profoundly different from the economics of innovation. Being 'first to file' has nothing to do with being first to market. Being first to market has nothing to do with being first to profitability. Being first to profitability -- and this is key! -- has virtually nothing to do with how quickly, deeply, and ubiquitously an innovation spreads. In other words, there is no meaningful correlation -- let alone causality -- between a 'successful' act of invention and a 'successful' marketplace innovation. None.

Other articles in the issue suggest that big companies are not the ones to most successfully advance invention. In fact, in many ways, they are the worst. Big companies are overly responsible to their shareholders for maximizing gains (in the arts, substitute boards and donors and sustainability), leading them to emphasize innovation rather than invention. Further, because they aggressively seek their dominant niche (electronics, genetics, biomechanics, etc. -- in the arts think dance, theater, musical performance, etc.), they draw inflexible boundaries around the questions they ask, often missing the cross-connections where true invention may arise.

Again, bridge to America's arts and cultural infrastructure...big nonprofits with large endowments, medium-sized organizations now feeling a squeeze to build their earned income, and small organizations flailing to stay solvent. Extending the argument above about invention, the larger and mid-sized organizations may be the least likely to foster and push true invention in creative experience. Their economics lead them to innovation on existing ideas, and diffusion of proven successes. That leaves the small, the informal, and the individual to carry the banner of invention.

But who's there to help them? Certainly not government funders, like the NEA, who are increasingly celebrating masterworks from the past and supporting the established institutions that display them. Not foundations, who also want to make a safer and more public splash with their shrunken capital funds. Not individual donors, who are conservative with their legacies, and wary about supporting creative styles that, by definition, don't yet exist. And not the free market of ticket buyers, who also manage risk by purchasing what they already know.

In the for-profit world, large corporations are coming to realize that they can't invent and shouldn't try to do so themselves. Instead, they outsource invention to a growing group of smaller, crazier, and insanely creative companies. These 'brainstorming laboratories,' as they are described in one article in the MIT issue, hire burning intellects from dozens of different fields, make physical and temporal space for them to bump into each other, and discourage the traditional barriers between disciplines and industries that often blinkered their work. The resulting inventions may take generations to actually bring to the market, but one or two short-term hits will, they hope, fund the process along the way.

So, big companies (in the for-profit world and in the arts) have an essential role to play in fostering invention -- outsourcing and supporting radical creation while they continue to milk every nickel out of innovation and diffusion. But this role requires them to recognize their own limits, and to get over their self-definition as engines of invention. Beyond that, according to columnist Michael Shrage, established companies have another essential job: priming the audience to welcome new ideas into their lives. Without the demand for new things, Shrage argues, the supply of invention will just pile up, undiscovered and unexplored, and innovation and diffusion will never carry them forward:

...the technical excellence of an invention matters far less than the economic willingness of the customer or client to explore it. A customer's readiness to innovate is what makes invention possible.

posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 | permalink