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Why does the diffusion of innovation take so long?
The diffusion of innovation can take up to 10 years. Why is industry so slow to catch up on new technology? Why is there such a gap between what science knows, and what business does? Why don't I see technology presented in TED Talks from before 2005 in the market today? Why is 10 year old research/knowledge/technology still "news" to people in the industry? How can we speed up the diffusion of innovation?
Topics:
innovation research risk science technology
Duane Byron Carlson
new ideas/
Tack sa Myket
Thomas E
Thomas E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk
Elisa Bruno
Prashant Sawant
an idea when reaches the tipping point gathers the momentum and transforms....
Bernd Fesel 30+
The theory is called "new institutional economics" or "game theory" - its thesis: if you have hidden actions and hidden acteurs, meaning that you do have IMperfect foresight of the future, than you can not calculate the risks of developments properly. Than you make wrong decisions.
To me "innovation" is similar to such imperfect foresight - beause innovation means that you do not know what is coming. innovation brings newness - it is inherently always a surprise (thank god!, that is what i love about it) and therefore innovation constructs a world of information imperfectness. Unfortunately this has adverse economic implications... but that is a different chapter.
Alejandro Ramos de la Peña
I am a robotic designer/Inventor and every time I am presenting my single port robotic surgery technology to surgeons I can see in their faces a combination of emotional reactions – fear, awesome, invalidation, etc. – even when the da Vinci robotic system is available in many countries. There are many doctors with an open attitude toward robotic surgery, but there are others attached to traditional methods.
Siuling Ding
For people who always want to experience the frontline of technology innovation, nothing is stopping them. To shift from traditional light to LED light may seem a small step but actually it is a huge undertaking. To replace all the lightbulbs on the market in a short period of time is a burst action and such actions are almost never good on a macro scale. Yes we're interested in engergy efficient products, but we also want predictable pace of progress.
- Ding
Kanwar Sodhi
Every change is not accepted readily, even if it theoretically, makes life easier.
Laurens Rademakers 50+
Nature's "inventions" can take thousands, even millions of years to diffuse. But then, they're entirely foolproof, brilliant, certain and very useful breakthroughs. Not so with fast-diffusing human "innovation". Precisely, perhaps, because it spreads so fast.
And then, what's innovation really? The jump from writing on paper to using computers: yes. That took a few thousand years. Jumping from iPhone 3 to 4? No.
Please, let the big breakthroughs and paradigm-shifts follow each other up slowly, so we can all adapt to them. We don't want a Kurzweilesque singularity, do we?
Also, I'm not a venture capitalist. For those people, speed may be important. They thrive on rapidly changing markets; often on superficial "innovation". For the rest of us, I think, we all welcome things to go a bit more relaxed.
Martin Hassel 500+
Marika Kooga
Siuling Ding
I think, we can possibly surpress this evolution but technology will unlock so much possibility it will be hard to resist, so many people will choose to adapt. After this point, it works very similar to natrual selection, if the adaptation proves more potent, these people will secure a higher chance of survival, the resisting group will become smaller and smaller, eventually be filtered out.
- Ding
jaeyun hwang
Shokrullah Amiri 10+
A lot of efforts; cost, and human capital are behind every science invention, unfortunately, there is not that much effort to communicate the application (its usage) to its concerned world as it is during its invention.
The problem also exists in business side too; because they know recent science accidently thru print or electronic media. I believe they should seek such information and invention.
On other hand, there is always resistance against change; while every change is beneficial to many people; it also harmful economically to some businesses because it replaces the existing ones.
Kabul Afghanistan
John Whitehead
Regarding the question of applications not being understood, there has to be creativity to deliberately make a thing that works for a particular application. This is called doing engineering, and it is often deliberate for the person(s) doing it, although there are certainly some surprises that lead to applications not expected.
Shokrullah Amiri 10+
By "Science invents", I meant invention only. I do not see anything like " my understanding is that people invent".
Regarding application, maybe I did not use the right word. But I was trying to say that there are a lot of useful things invented but we are not aware of them. How can we increase awareness for the quick adoption of a new invention by its users?
Thanks
David Boulanger
John Whitehead
A famous example is airliners that fly at high altitude with pressurized cabins. The first ones, the DeHaviland Comet, made by a British company, had one simple flaw, square windows. The airplane structures came apart because cracks propagate from a sharp point. They fell out of the sky. Then other airplane companies made tons of money.
We live in a society where very, very few people do anything substantial other than going with the flow, finding a way to fit in with what already exists. What fraction of the population truly understands how much harder it is to do something for the very first time, versus simply copying.
So for an idea to become a new market, there is market risk stacked up on top of all the engineering risks for turning an idea into a product.
Nathan Sketch
Martin Hassel 500+
John Whitehead
stephen heiden
Joe Delsen 20+
Solution 2. Transformation of our economic systems into an equitable and earth-sustainable economic model. (WEF Global Redesign Initiative, businesses and governments, NGOs)
Solution 3. Formulation and implementation of global transformation strategies of our industries. (WEF, businesses and governments, NGOs)
Solution 4. Information campaigns to bring more awareness to people and strengthen our political resolve.:
- more participation in our electoral process and constant dialog with our political representatives
- social networks (TED.com, Facebook, etc.)
- political and economic information and social network system to strengthen transparency and accountability
Solution 5. Information campaigns to bring more awareness to what we can contribute individually, locally or as a nation (TED.com, carbon footprint awareness, influence of our buying habits, etc.).
We also need an information system for solution and reform activities and see our progress and identify activities that needs more effort. http://bit.ly/SolutionStrategies
Ray Anon 10+
PS: One important aspect to keep in mind is the fact that this issue is highly dependent of the culture. American entrepeneurs seem to be much more optimistic and adventurous than German ones; failures are judged completely differently from what I've heard. I haven't collected first-hand experience with the USA yet, but the German mentality can be pretty much summed up as "If you cawl, you can't fall." (My personal translation of "Wer kriecht, stolpert nicht.") So if the own culture is very conservative and therefore opposed to the own daringness, one should consider the possibility that it might just be the place where one was randomly born, and that the true homeland is located somewhere else. Luckily, we live in a globalized world where such explorations are possible and not necessarily irreversible :)
Ray Anon 10+
A very vivid and probably familiar example for putting rationality in second row is the refusal of co-workers and bosses to make use of computer technology. I encountered that attitude myself when I worked in the military staff department for human resources. We possessed a large paper list with thousands of individuals. When their assignments changed, we had to write it down in this giant list manually, and when we had to look up information about specific people, we searched in old storages with even older index cards. This was a tedious work and prone to errors. So I asked the really helpful secretary to type in all these names in Excel in order to have a digital list. She did so, which made the search for specific names and further information a matter of seconds while simultaneously reducing errors near to zero! But I bet the system broke down as soon as I left. My approach was at least "tolerated", as long as I also kept up the traditional method where you protocol the changes on paper lists.
Why did the digitalization fail in this department? I see the problem in the fact that they we were paid to do the work, and not paid to do the work *efficiently*. It was a simple case of wrong incentives. So maybe we should phrase question as: "What economical and emotional incentives do the deciders in businesses have to adapt to new technology?" Or, to specify your question about how we can speed up the change:
"How can we increase economical and emotional incentives for deciders in businesses to adapt to new technology?"
Ray Anon 10+
Well, there are quite some economic reasons for not rushing: Will the innovation be accepted by the customers? Will it last for a while or be outdated within a few years? Can we manage to convince investors? Why not let someone else stomach all the starter problems and simply go with the second generation? Is the tempting cost estimation realistic, or will they rather explode once the project has been initiated? And quite a simple problem can be that the innovation is simply unknown to the business. Imagine how many bands and songs remained unknown for years before suddenly having worldwide success. And when it comes to internet memes, some have slept for decades with no one being able to foresee their massive popularity.
But all these issues put aside, there is another barrier that should never be underestimated. Max Planck once stated: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." And I find this wise insight confirmed again and again. Isn't that shocking? Science should be more than any other field about the competition of the best ideas and arguments. If conservatism reigns even here, what does that tell us about the rest of humanity? Well, according to my experience, humans are far from being primarily rational beings; they rather apply rationality only where they view it as necessary. And even when it comes to economic questions, they relatively seldom decide for it.
nik walser
John Whitehead
Most new ideas that are tried don't work out, so money is wasted. Investors know this fact, so it is very difficult for anyone to be paid to intentionally innovate. People who want to innovate have a strong incentive to say their idea is all ready to be implemented, in order to get anyone else to be interested or to invest. Therefore, we should accept that some of the new technologies that take long to get to market are either (1) just wishful thinking to begin with, or (2) they need further innovation to implement.
Turning ideas into technology reality is called engineering. Perhaps many people expect too much from engineering, misunderstand engineering, or take it for granted. It is ironic that this entire TED Convesation so far does not include the word "engineering" or "engineer" in any of the prior comments.
Companies have to make changes to implement innovation. Changes upset the social order within an organization, which contributes to the tendency to slow down new technologies. In many cases, people who are good at running companies don't understand innovation at all. One thing that might help is to find a way to actually reward innovators, rather than only rewarding the process of copying and using an innovation.
Mike Kilkenny-Patrick
yusuf jackson
I think, the habits take the advantage, it's so easy to do what we are doing for years...
But where to find these informations somewhere else than on TED? I think it's our duty to spread these informations to the appropriate persons.
the people of the indusrty make most of the choices to put certain thing out at a certain time
Mike Kilkenny-Patrick
Martin Hassel 500+
Comment deleted
Martin Hassel 500+
Still, it strikes me as odd to see so much ingenious technology presented in TEDtalks, from several years ago, while so little of it is available in the market today. Also, many companies does not only care about the next quarterly results, but do invest heavily in long-term R&D. But maybe its an inherent resistance in large corporations to be fluid enough to implement new technology? Maybe its just as much a matter of convenience?
I also believe you may have a point with regards to patents and copyright. Open source technology on the web has a much faster diffusion of technology compared with proprietary "hardware".
I started thinking about this after reading Steven Johnson's, "Where good ideas come from" from the TED book club. His theory is that the only way to speed up the diffusion of innovation, is to share your ideas/technology with others, so that the community as a whole can work together to implement new ideas and technology, rather than trying to sell something by yourself to the rest, having to convince every new customer that this is a good thing.
John Whitehead
Mike Kilkenny-Patrick
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
Ramiro Benavides