Invertia When innovation loses its way
“Is this the future we want?” It is the question that the journalist Jaya Saxena asks herself in a recent article in which she raises a near moment in which the sky will be filled with delivery drones and the cities with ghost restaurants.
Saxena examines how, in the quest to disrupt the restaurant and delivery business, innovators are neglecting what really matters. This is: guarantee a decent wage in the sector and promote conscious consumption that understands the real cost of enjoying the convenience of having food cooked for you and brought home.
Your article coincides in time with an interview about NFTs and the 'crypto' world with musician and artist Brian Eno. "I often hear, 'What could we do with these technologies?' which doesn't mean 'How could we make the world a better place?' but 'how could we turn them into money?'" Eno responds to his interviewer, the writer Evgeny Morzov.
Both reflections lead me to a question: Is innovation losing its way? I ask Jara Pascual, CEO of Collabwith and an expert in innovation. His response: "He's long since lost it." Not theoretically, of course, but practically. "One of the big problems is that innovation is being equated with ideas, and often they are ideas without application, that do not even respond to challenges. And worst of all, they sometimes end up becoming products," he points out.
Nonsense to the market
Pascual gives the example of connected diapers, which notify parents when the baby has peed. "It's the height of nonsense. If you're busy and can't take care of your child, you don't need an app that interrupts you to let you know that he's done his business. And if you're not, you don't need one either, because you can take care of him. It is a product that encourages us not to be aware of the baby but all the time with the mobile", says Pascual.
Not by chance, Google is one of the companies behind this type of product, which also has another counterpart: a mountain of electronic waste. "It follows the anti-logic that you have to put technology everywhere," adds the expert. One more consequence of the prevailing technological solutionism.
When innovation loses its way. Photo: S Migaj / Unsplash.
From the concept level, the founder and director of Design Thinking Spain, Saúl Loriente, brings another perspective: "I believe that innovation is an instrument, and that it is not innovation that can lose its way, but those who make use of We have worked with many companies and startups that innovation has served to design a product or service aligned with the desires and needs of the user and differentiate themselves from other competitors with a certain degree of success or positive impact," he adds.
However - Loriente qualifies - this "does not mean that during the growth of the project its pillars, mission and relationship with its users will not be altered". "If that happens, I would not say that innovation is the one that loses the north, but rather that there are companies that stop taking it into account in a new change of direction," he says. Of course, innovation per se, in its theoretical definition, is not to blame.
You shall not harm
The principle of good sense and common sense are often conspicuous -as in the case of diapers- by their absence. Also not to cause harm. If they are not met, can we continue talking about innovation? clearly not. Something innovative (be it a product, process, tool, service, etc). it cannot be if it is detrimental to the planet or to people (or groups).
The above may sound logical, but it often doesn't apply. "Innovative" business models that bring very low-cost services to the masses in exchange for making their workers more precarious are the order of the day, as are systems that automate processes at the cost of discriminating against certain groups, or those that they promise to solve the problems of an entire industry but in reality they only provide huge money to a few.
Platforms and apps, artificial intelligence and advanced algorithms, blockchain, sensors or drones are at the service of all of this. Often, they do it with good promises, which they end up breaking. Not always, of course. Here, at D+I, you will find many good examples.
Uncertain course
The problem when innovation loses its way is that it follows an uncertain course. Schools and peddlers that look at science fiction and not at people; initiatives that lose perspective on the purpose and the real problem to be solved, and that generate other problems along the way.
"Using science fiction as a reference to come up with ideas, without detecting needs or looking at the market, is as useless as simply asking users, who obviously don't have the answers to everything. You have to ask them, but you don't hold them accountable," says Pascual. "There are very few people who think. Most of them just follow en masse what some Silicon Valley guru says, without thinking if it's right or wrong or if it makes sense here, and without a critical spirit," she says.
The underlying problem is one of objectives and incentives. In the innovation ecosystem, actors motivated by the positive impact on different interest groups coexist with selfish agents who seek to change something without worrying about its negative effects, with people who only seek to disrupt for the sake of disrupting, and with others who simply use innovation. as a marketing tool they don't take it seriously.
Pascual criticizes that there are funds, incubators, accelerators, venture builders and business schools that contribute to the trivialization of innovation. "The system is broken. You have to rethink the focus of many of these initiatives, which often aim to make a good presentation for an investor above anything else, and this is also useless because a PPT is not going to solve anything ", he comments.
"Another handicap is that in these environments everyone has to volunteer for free. Mentors, which is what entrepreneurs value most, are not paid. In the end, both they and investors and founders go through the earring because it is convenient for them to wear this or that sticker", adds the founder of Collabwith.
There is also an issue of aspirations. Being a unicorn is sought after, promoted and rewarded at all costs, when reaching that scale is only a means to improve things and not an end in itself. Furthermore, if all startups aspire to be unicorns, there will be many causes and challenges that will never be addressed or addressed because they are not lucrative businesses and do not affect large enough groups. However, these groups tend to be the marginalized or at risk of exclusion, who precisely need the most help.
How do we address this? As much as it is repeated, it is still true: a change of mentality is required. Act in accordance with principles and values, and know what all the decisions that are made imply. "There is a question that any innovator must have in mind all the time: "What future do you want to have? And, an equally important sub-question: 'What does that imply that you are creating (or using) for that future?'", asks Pascual.
The above applies, in reality to any citizen, in their facet of creator, producer, consumer and social agent. Diversity is added to the change of mentality. They are two stories that are told a lot and little applied, but that will have to change if you really want to redirect the course. Hopefully this is not preaching in the desert.