Hello technological innovators
Much of what is being discussed has been addressed by the people working in the social construction of technology frame or approach the central tenet of which is that neither technology nor society determine innovation design or however you want to call the emergence of new things like bicycles and bulbs and so forth (see bijker and friends). Building on a couple of decades of good sociology and history of science, the SCOT crew figured that the same kind of complex messy emergence of things like findings in science also worked for technology. Lucy Suchman some years back also gave us a good account of how significant interpretation is for the establishment and stabilising of the meaning of new technologies eg Xerox machine and gay and hembrooke bring SCOT into their activity centred design method.The current and historical play off between designed things people and so forth is reminiscent of the kind of ill structured wicked form giving that rittel and friends told us about nearly fourty years ago for designerly problem-solution outcomes. Typically the idea of placing technology or invention or needs first is often an ideologically inspired choice ie if I am in the human creativity camp (and maybe. A latent inventor myself) then Innovation will come first. Chicken and egg. Also the idea that there is a common story to all cases of innovation or whatever as opposed to a set of broad conditions or principles giving impetus to innovation needs to be questioned. Any of the historical examples of the emergence of certain successful innovations look far mor like the inverted randomly pruned upside down evolutionary trees Stephen Gould was keen on drawing to our attention. A similar invocation of chance as in his neo -darwinian picture of species evolution and loss might also be a healthy visual and textual metaphor - since that was recently on the agenda of the list - for some of what people are trying to describe here. I'm at the kitchen table and away from my books so no references specified below.
-----Original Message-----
From: Lars Albinsson <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
To: Albinsson, Lars <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 3/04/2010 6:51:24 PM
Subject: Re: Technology first, invention second, needs last
Dear Fil and Donald,
I think your position is somewhat similar to that of von Wright (who "inherited" Wittgenstein's chair in Cambridge):
”Technological innovations must, to be used, respond to whishes. They may also respond to needs. And, which is important to observe, by responding to whishes they may create needs. … It is not the market, which spontaneously calls for innovations and improvements of already made innovations. The relationship is the reversed; technical innovations are marketed so that they correspond to whishes, which have been woken and shaped by already existing technologies.” [my translation] (von Wright, 1986 p 141-142). Much development is also done following the "wishes" of the engineers and technologists.
Fil's model share some characteristics with the work of Douglas Engelbart (mostly known as the inventor of the mouse). He put forward ideas of the capabilities in organizations as being developed in an interplay between technology development and development of usage. (“human systems and tool systems”) (Engelbart, 1962). New technology allows for new behaviors, new behaviors may inspire new technologies. This includes both a more planned or rationalistic use of new technology as well as the serendipitous or unintended applications of technologies.
Within the field of innovation research it is customary to make a difference between invention, innovation and diffusion. (Following Schumpter who also coined the term "entrepreneur"). Some of the examples you give would then be inventions, which never made it to a "market", other would be innovations (being successfully introduced to a "market"). There is quite a large body of research on this, for instance the s-curve introduced by Everett M. Rogers in his 1962 book, “Diffusion of Innovations". ("Early adopters", "mainstream users" etc.)
Donald's phrase "myth: Use ethnographic observational studies to discover hidden, unmet needs" is a difficult to place, I was not aware that this was a widely held position. I agree with Erik and other that question your focus on "needs". (Although I agree that a user of a computer system may actually have need for a toilet.) As both Fil's and earlier models indicate, innovation is an interplay between wishes and technology development. And marketing is often used to modify and develop peoples wishes. (iPad anyone?) Of course for instance von Hippel discusses user driven innovation but not in such a over-simplistic way.
The key in innovation is that it often requires the customers or users to shift their views. The will to do so and the effects of it is very difficult to predict and survey (which is fairly well-known since the Ford Edsel). For instance Engelbart's invention of the mouse was accompanied by a single hand key board, which allowed very effective simultaneous pointing, clicking and typing. While the mouse is widely diffused, few have heard of the single hand keyboard. (I have tried at Douglas home, it is a fairly quick to learn and really fast.)
Best wishes
Lars
Engelbart, D. C. (1962). Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework: Stanford Research Institute.
http://www.dougengelbart.org/library/slides.html
von Wright, G. H. (1986). Vetenskapen och förnuftet. Stockholm: MånPocket.
Schumpeter, J. (1934). The theory of economic development : an inquiry into profits, capital, credit, interest, and the business cycle. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P.
von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing innovation. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
/Lars
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LARS ALBINSSON
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1 apr 2010 kl. 17.39 skrev Don Norman:
Hurrah! Filippo's analysis is wonderful. here is the comment i entered on
his blog page:
Very nice analysis. Precisely what I was hoping might result: informed
discussion and debate, perhaps new formulations. Alas, most of the debate
has been uninformed. Thank you, Filippo. This is the best analysis I have
seen. I couldn't have said it better myself. In fact, I obviously didn't.
Don Norman
On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 7:44 PM, Filippo A. Salustri <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> It's taken a long time, but I've finally put down some thoughts on the
> whole
> technology & need thing.
> Those still interested can read them at
> http://filsalustri.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/balancing-need-and-technology/
> Cheers.
> Fil
>
> On 18 December 2009 03:57, Rosan Chow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
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