INFO 225’s first module focused on innovation processes within a firm. The article linked to below takes a more global view and discusses the type of innovation (activity of the profit seeking firms) outlined in 225 as one of four ways in which innovations emerge in the world.
If innovation is our goal for the sake of human progress should we be looking to for-profit firms to achieve this? A very interesting article in the New York Times by Steven Johnson discusses where good ideas come from. After laying out the landscape Johnson discusses how type 4 is not easily categorized with the modern language of politics nor business and therefore is difficult to discuss openly.
The Four Quadrants of Innovation
1. classic solo entrepreneur doing it for the money
2. amateur individual doing it for the love
3. private corporations collaborating on ideas while simultaneously competing with one another
4. non-proprietary, collaborative innovation (i.e. GPS, the internet, biomedical inventions)
Johnson acknowledges the 4th quadrant is not the end of the story. “This fourth space creates new platforms, which then support commercial ventures.”
3 replies on “The 4th Quadrant of Innovation”
That’s a good article, thanks for sharing it with us. It’s interesting to see how Johnson categorizes innovation into different phases and yet speaks of innovation as not being a “left or right” issue. The very fact that he cast them into “phases” goes to show how the human brain treats everything regardless of it’s nature as a “left or right” issue. I personally believe in the quote: Necessity is the mother of invention.
Whether it is the need for money, luxury, space, simplicity, or otherwise, every little innovation in life has been born from a need, which I personally think is a very simple way of looking at it. Like Morten discussed in class, in Europe there was a “need” when people went to the shower and found no room to hang their shampoo bottles. That is how P&G launched the shampoo bottles with built in hooks to hang them on the shower which were hugely successful and mimicked by other companies soon after.
This is indeed a very interesting read though.
I’m intrigued by why the 4th sector generates so many ideas. The author states:
“The answer, I believe, has to do with the increased connectivity that comes from these open environments. Ideas are free to flow from mind to mind, and to be refined and modified without complex business development deals or patent lawyers. The incentives for innovation are lower, but so are the barriers.”
This layers nicely on the concept of bridging structural holes that we discussed earlier in the course. The shift in incentives in the 4th quadrant may cultivate bridge people.
The fourth quadrant does seem like ideal conditions for collaboration — where the non-proprietary nature of the innovation can act to encourage interaction between different parties, even as the new platforms that emerge as a result of this allow for new commercial ventures. And I think Namitta’s point about necessity in innovation is particularly applicable for this fourth quadrant, where neither competition between private firms nor individual imperatives are at play as incentives.