The role of innovation in society

2. The role of innovation in society • Modern societies are depended on technology. • Innovations are main vehicles in technological change and economic growth. • Innovations are deeply imbedded in the culture of western society. • Innovations are a part of the knowledge economy: Patents and IP’s • Innovations are made in the environment that targets certain expectations to technology. Innovation, in turn, gives a promise which fulfills the expectation. • Hence: There is a connection between technology and society and it can be interpreted by searching for expectations and promises. (Harro van Lante) • Expectations and promises are not external, but instead internal parts of the innovation process. How and what things are made Artefacts Shared knowledge on what is believed to be useful. Agenda Actors Who decides what Is doing 9/2013

3. Difficulties in understanding technologicalchange • What is technology: hardware + software + design + knowledge+ work + use • Technology is often placed in the ‘black box’ – it is affecting economy, politics, social systems and human life, BUT HOW? (Nathan Rosenberg) • What is the technology – society interaction? • 1. Technology causes change, but is the process one way or two way street? • 2. Technology is created by people and institutions, but once technology is created, who controls it? • 3. How technology is managed? • 4. The crucial instrument is technology management is “technology policy” • It defines: • a. Expectations and promises • b. Priorities • c. Division of labor • 5. Technology policy directs innovation in transnational, national, regional and local levels, but it also directs innovation in the company. 9/2013

4. Different ways to interpret technological change • Economic theory: From exogenous variable into endogenous variable • -it becomes more and more important to understand the role of technology in company and society in large • Evolutionary economics: Technology as the main actor in business: Uncertainty: Companies cannot know beforehand which technologies will be successful.– Technological trajectories and paradigms. • Quasi-evolutionary –approach: Innovation process includes certain search processes which guide the final outcome. • Technological systems: Technology as a part of social system: Innovations are negotiated to solve problems that threatened the function of the system. • Actor-network – theory: Heterogeneous elements are important for the development of technology – innovation is a process of negotiation. • Technology as politics- Technology is not value-free, thus innovations are an inherent part of ongoing political struggle. (companies aiming at certain direction) • Social construction of technology: Innovation is a social process and therefore new technology is produced by various actors imposing their interests in technology. • Cultural studies: Technology as an artefact is a cultural entity – design and function are determined by culture (efficiency, power, ethnic or gender superiority) 9/2013

5. The Mind’sEye • Eugen S. Ferguson (1992) ”The Mind’sEye”: ”Visual thinking is necessary in engineering. A major portion of engineering information is recorded and transmitted in a visual language that is in effect the lingua franca of engineers in the modern world”. • With the mind’s eye inventors ‘see’ the ‘invention’ in their minds. This visual picture is then transformed in the ‘picture’ or ‘blue print’ which then is turned into ‘pilot version’ of a machine. This process involves negotiations, compromises and social interaction between several people. • Walter P. Chrysler: ”The design of the Chrysler automobile is the picture that was in my mind long before it became the car we all know.” • The mind’s eye has interested psychologists and neuro-scientists: It is the locus of remembered reality and imagined contrivance. It is an organ of incredible capacity and subtlety. Collecting and interpreting much more than the information that enters through the optical eyes, the mind’s eye is the organ in which a lifetime of sensory information is stored, interconnected, an interrelated. • - The mind eye is the key to the innovation. It is the organ that reads the environment, translates material and immaterial objects and their relationships into visual language. The visual image is therefore ‘technological’ solution to the problem that has been defined in the mind of an innovator. 9/2013

6. Problem solving • Engineering knowledge is based on scientific and mathematical knowledge, but adapted in the visual and mechanical environment. The instrument of translation is DESIGN. • There is no one ‘best way’ of creating new technology, but several parallel avenues which need to be tried, tested, re-tested and negotiated. • There is no linear development corridors, but problem-solving process which utilizes scientific knowledge, engineering experience and information from the users. • How the critical problems are framed? • 1. Study of society: There is something wrong in the society, but what is the problem? • 2. Once the problem is framed, the problem-solving process begins. • 3. What is needed for problem-solving? – new hardware? new software?, new business model? or combination of one or many of these? • 4. The problem solving process is a collective process that includes professionals from several expert areas: How to find the common language? • Result: Innovation-process solves social, economic, political or cultural problems by translating the problem into technological language and then re-translating it back to society = dissemination of knowledge, new products, new knowledge, new business models. • This process builds up ‘technological knowledge’ or ‘useful knowledge’ • David Noble’s definition: “Innovation is discoveries of science which are systematically applied by the "useful arts" of manufacturing for the purpose of increasing productivity and profits. 9/2013

7. Managing complexities • When technological systems grow, they become increasingly complex. • Technologies are interrelated and connected to each other vertically and horizontally. • Large scale systems have physical and non-physical components which develop in different phase. ‘Reverse salients’ must be solved in order to promote growth. • Large scale systems become hierarchical which slows down innovation process and hinders information flow inside the system. Isolated pockets are dangerous, because they can become ‘weak links’ in the system. • System failures are difficult to prevent and if the system fails, the results are often catastrophic – Chernobyl, stimulated attacks against internet, ash cloud • “If you destroyed a major internet hub, you would also destroy all the links that are connected to it.” • Asby’s law: the complexity of an organization internally must match the complexity of its external environment. – New organizational structures (Matrix), global coordination, internal information systems etc. 6/2013

8. Group discussion • Summarize the story of the ”failure” innovation • Summarize the roles of differentactors in the story • Summarize the interactionbetween science, technology and society