In the Web 3.0 period, education is necessary when global competition increase.
How can Turkey’s education system be improved? Our guest from Finland, which runs one of the best education systems in the world, gives the secret of this business.
How do we reach the education system like Finland?
One of the 2014 Turkey Innovation Week speakers was Esko Aho, former Finnish Prime Minister. He started his speech with these words: “Here, they mostly ask me the following question: How can the Turkish education system be like Finland? How can we reach the level you have reached?”
Finland was ranked third in the “Education Ranking by Country” in 2021. According to the “Global Competitiveness Report” of the World Economic Forum, Finland was chosen as the country with the most developed education system in the world.
“If you want to innovate in education, you must first understand what is innovation ” Esko Aho continued.
What is Innovation?
We all have more or less an idea of what is innovation: doing something with a fresh method, developing new techniques, being creative, inventing something new, etc. Just like the youth music group in “Turkey’s Got Talent TV Show” who are performing with PVC pipes.
Esko Aho continued his speech by saying, “The answer to understanding what innovation is partly also what it is not.” “What is not innovation?” he asked. And “Imitation is not innovation.” he replied.
The show in Turkey’s Got Talent had a similar problem. It was very similar to another show produced 10 years ago, down to its facial expressions. After the broadcast of the show, many people commented on the internet that the show was stolen from “Blue Man Group, Drumbone”. So, The lead host and the owner of the TV show Acun Ilıcalı stated that; the Turkish group who prepared the Turkish show told the source they were inspired by on the TV show, but this part was removed in the editing.
Can you copy a global ad?
Peak Games, the Turkey’s first unicorn in the game sector, launched an innovative campaign in 2019. They broadcasted their commercial in prime time on most of the national TV channels at the same time. With this method, all channels appeared to have been hacked for a short time by Peak Games. But there was a tiny flaw in this big campaign, which appeared in outdoor advertisements in many central spots the next day. The ad was very similar to Audi’s “Safety Code” movie, from the music to the animation.
When it was talked about that this idea was stolen from Audi on the internet, Peak Games announced that “they didn’t know about the issue, and that a legal action had been initiated against the agency of the campaign”. They removed the ad from their official social media accounts.
If you’ve seen the movie “The Social Network,” you know that Mark Zuckerberg stole the Facebook idea from the Winklevoss brothers. In the movie, the Winklevoss brothers requested a help from the university administrator Larry Summers. He said that “ Well I would suggest that you let your imaginations run away with you on a new project.” He also told them that it was none of the university’s issues.
In the last 10 years, we have witnessed dozens of patent infringement lawsuits between Apple and Samsung. Sometimes Apple, sometimes Samsung were sitting on the defendant’s seat. Picasso’s famous saying is remembered when there is such copying of ideas: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”
Do Great artists steal?
A good artist will see another artist’s style and then try and emulate that style as closely as they can. This is what Picasso meant by “copying”. A great artist, on the other hand, will select elements from another artist’s work and incorporate them into their unique mix of influences. He will transform his inspirations into new things of his own. These works will also inspire others one day. This is what Picasso means by “stealing”. It is not a theft of ideas, but a social-cultural exchange. As Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
Robert Kearns, Flash of Genius
Before moving on to the conclusion part, I will recommend the movie “Flash of Genius”, which is about a real event that happened. In this film, American engineer and academic Robert Kearns stand up to the world giant Multi-billion dollar Ford Motor Company, which stole his idea. Ford, who agreed to buy the idea of wiper blades that can operate at different speeds, which are used in almost all vehicles today, then deceives him and steals his idea. I don’t want to give spoilers because there are people who haven’t watched it, but the lawsuit that Robert Kearns filed in 1978 was concluded in 1990. In America, the cradle of civilization, Kearns has been fighting a fierce legal battle against intellectual theft for years.
Conclusion: We must invest in creative ideas for brand equity
Esko Aho ended his speech in the Turkey Innovation Week with these words, “How can you have an education system like Finland? By not being like Finland, without imitating, by investing in Turkey’s unique education system.” We need both education and innovation to be successful in global competition.
In 2017, the Blue Man Group, which produced the original PVC pipe show, was acquired by Canadian Cirque Du Soleil for millions of dollars. The legal process initiated by Peak Games due to the similarity of the Audi commercial was concluded last March. The court decided that Medina Turgul DDB, who prepared the campaign, will pay 10.5 million TL compensation to Peak Games. Winklevoss brothers, who did not listen to the advice of school administrator Larry Summers about Facebook, signed a legal agreement of 65 million dollars as a result of the lawsuit they filed against Mark Zuckerberg and established Nifty Gateway, one of the most influential NFT platforms today. They have net earnings of 4.2 billion dollars as of 2022. Finally, Robert Kearns, who made a great contribution to humanity with his innovation in wiper, won his battle. After more than a decade in the legal system, the Ford Motor Company agreed to settle with Robert Kearns for $10.2 million. In 1992, Kearns won a judgment against Chrysler for $30 million. Chrysler appealed the decision, but it was upheld when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Chrysler’s appeal.
As these examples increase, our societal tolerance for plagiarism will gradually decrease. We will better understand the boundaries between inspiration and theft of ideas. When our idea is stolen, the people we ask for help will not tell us to give up, but to seek our rights. With innovative technologies such as blockchain, web 3.0, artificial intelligence, machine learning, violations of rights will be noticed much faster than traditional patents way. As Herman Melville said: It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
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If you are interested in Innovation, you can also read the article “All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and so gorgeous at the end!” where I explain that innovation does not come from new ideas.
