Creating Innovation
Alan Kay is a computer scientist and polymath best known for his work at Xerox PARC. I recently watched an inspiring talk he gave for startup school that discusses the environment required for creating innovations.
The key take away I got from Alan Kay’s talk was that truly innovative products are unlikely to come from typical business endeavours, which are necessarily focused on incremental change to known viable business products and services. Massive innovation, as is seen from the likes of Xerox PARC, the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Program are built around putting smart people together and giving them the resources to experiment with any ideas they can come up with.
This idea of giving people freedom, trust and money to make their visions come to life is interesting.
In the world of today, software developers can invent the future from their laptops, communities of smart people can be found at all corners of the internet. The missing piece is money. Money would unlock the freedom for many people to do some really innovative things. Unshackling people from their day jobs to give them the time to create could be magical.
This is, in essence, part of the core vision Gene Roddenberry had for Star Trek. A future of abundance where we are free to follow great leaders, or live a life that fulfils our own visions and dreams.
We have not yet created that utopia. In the here and now, money is a necessary requirement to live. It is a necessary ingredient for creating innovation.
However with software, innovation can come with a modest sum. Perhaps just personal savings, or a side hustle could be enough to cover expenses for long enough to work on something innovative.
This is becoming easier as services on the internet lower the barriers to entry for earning money: crowdfunding, the ‘gig economy’, Shopify stores, YouTube channels and more are becoming ways to earn a little money on the side to support your vision.
I think we are slowly inching towards a future where massive innovation will be even easier. And I hope that fostering innovative ideas and people is something that I can play a role in enabling.
