On the enabling innovation through low-cost experimentation

[Kevin Donovan]

Wanted to point out two recent pieces that touch on creating an
enabling environment for innovation through low-cost experimentation.

Wendy Seltzer has a new journal article explaining how DRM/anti-
circumvention methods restrict innovations from the edge:
http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/archives/2009/11/29/new-paper-anticircumvention-versus-open-innovation.html

And Clay Shirky was interviewed by a Canadian journalist:

http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2009/11/full-interview-clay-shirky/

Key quote:

"Nora: OK, so when it comes to this kind of spirit of innovation
spreading, what are some of the conditions that you need to foster
that kind of spreading of this social innovation?

Clay: You need a very low cost of experimentation, right? If things
are expensive to try people will hold back from trying them and
they’ll spend all their time trying not to fail. If the cost of
experimentation falls though, and I mean falls precipitously, then
people will spend a lot of time experimenting, and instead of not
failing, the goal becomes to fail informatively to learn something
from the things you tried."

Nothing ground-breaking to this community, but could be useful support
as fair mobile progresses.

[Steve Song]

Hi Kevin,

Snap. I heard that podcast with Clay Shirky and thought exactly the
same thing. I used that very quotation a couple of times in the last
two days at a retreat I was attending. One interesting pushback I got
from a colleague was the "innovation from constraint" meme. He asked
how one might reconcile the fact that constraint can be a spur to
innovation while also promoting lowering the barriers to innovation.
I suspect some constraints are bigger spurs to innovation than others
and that there is a limit to innovation when cost is the constraint.

Cheers... Steve

2009/11/30 Kevin Donovan <kdono...@gmail.com>:

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Steve Song
http://manypossibilities.net