Commemities (1): NARRATIVE-CENTRIC ANALYTICS

Every innovation — every new concept we consider — needs a name and a narrative to exist. This series of articles describes a narrative-centric innovation theory (in which innovation is defined as the introduction of new narrative), then discusses the qualities of the theory. It presents ‘commemity,’ a proposal for analytics for a narrative-centered economy, that adapts to change and requires a minimal amount of assumptions. Commemity builds on the idea that people connect memes and memes connect people. A commemity is defined as {community + shared memes} or, equivalently, memes and people holding each other together in a cluster.

In this series:
1. Narrative-Centric Analytics
2. Defining Narrative-Centric Innovation
3. Benefits of Defining Innovation as ‘Introduction of New Narrative’
4. Analyzing Trends in an Innovation Economy
to be continued…..

INTRODUCTION: “BLIXFLUP”

Everything needs a name, for reference, a definition so that we know what it is or is not, and a narrative so that we can relate to it. Otherwise that thing cannot exist in our minds. For example, if tennis didn’t have a name, how would anyone be able to play it? (“Hey, want to join me for a game of [silence]?” “Here are the rules of [silence]” etc. ). Or if someone invented the word “tennis” but it didn’t have a definition. (Let me tell you about tennis. It is [silence] ). Or think if it had a name and a definition, but there wasn’t a narrative (“Tennis is *7^ue8++#@2. Let’s do it!”). Every concept need all three: name, definition, narrative.

A narrative is different from a story. ‘Narrative’ means a scheme of interrelations, the basic architecture of a story. A narrative can be a cultural pattern, the principles of a Greek tragedy or physics. Embarrassing oneself at a public event is a story based on a cultural pattern. The story of “Oedipus Rex” is a Greek tragedy, and Schrödinger’s cat is a physics story.

I have a friend, Bob, who often talks about a ‘blixflup’ and nobody know what he is referring to, including me. I only know ‘blixflup’ as something that Bob and nobody else mentions. But at least I have a definition and a narrative for it:

• Name: Blixflup
• My definition: Something that Bob and nobody else discusses.
• My narrative: Bob says it often and it has meaning for him. I don’t know what that meaning is. Nobody else does, either.

Bob coined the name and we both relate to it, but differently. We have overlap. Bob’s definition is unknown but he is the custodian of his narrative and of my narrative, too, despite me having set up the definition. But that’s more or less all we can say at this stage. But it’s more than nothing and I have added a way of relating to him, even if it is minor. If ‘blixflup’ lets him relate to me, I do not know. One day Bob invites me to his home. He shows me an invention in his cellar that can cure all diseases. This is the blixflup! Knowing this, the concept evolves:

• Name: Blixflup
• My definition: Bob’s machine that can cure all diseases.
• My narrative: Bob has invented a machine that can cure all diseases. Only Bob and I know it exists. Bob is the custodian, in charge of the definition. He controls the narrative more than I do.

My definition is probably compatible with his. My narrative is less so. He must have considered how others can relate to his machine, his narrative that I have no idea about. Yet we have shared narrative. Our narratives, if not compatible, overlap partly.

I’m an entrepreneur and I get a vision of how the Blixflup can be the next big thing. Bob and I write a business plan and find investors. We start a company so that the Blixflup can conquer the world. I am the entrepreneur and CEO, Bob is co-founder and CTO. As CEO I am now officially the key custodian of our narrative. By writing the business plan Bob and I not only merged our narratives into a shared narrative, we prepared it to become a common narrative. We have shaped it so that many people can relate in ways that give them a stake in the narrative of our startup.

• Name: Blixflup
• Definition: A machine that can cure all diseases, trademarked by Blixflupster Inc
• Narrative: the business plan.

The stakeholders in the narrative are people with illnesses, professionals in the health sector, parents, employers, and many others. We have taken key parts of their narratives and baked them into our narrative, so that they will relate to our innovation. A mother can cure her children to improve their lives. An employer can lower healthcare costs, while having healthier workers and improving the company culture. Ill people can be cured and start a new life with family and friends. Our common narrative is designed to create as much value as possible for the stakeholders. Our investors and partners are special stakeholders, with a stake in our custody of the narrative. My job, as the entrepreneur and chief custodian, is to stay on top of two strategic questions:

• How will our narrative become their narrative?
• How will it remain ours once it is theirs?

The first question is about marketing. The second is about protection. Intellectual property is part of it. I can trademark product, system and service names, file patents and so on. But it’s not enough. Our startup must retain custody of the narrative. We should be in charge of what Blixflup means. If we control the second question, our competitors’ best strategy is to befriend us. If we do not control the second question, their best strategy is to defeat us. For big companies with big sticks — and startups are surrounded by them — being the custodian beats befriending the custodian, especially if the custodian is a small startup. We prefer having Pfizer and Novartis as envious supporters than being their lunch. We must be smart, own our narrative and remain the author of the story. The less we own the narrative, the likelier we end up as lunch. Some entrepreneurs make themselves inseparable from their narrative, like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. It means being seen as a one-man-show. Neither were the inventors, but they were almost portrayed as such. Steve ‘was’ Apple and Elon ‘is’ Tesla. Without that, they would be vulnerable to separation from their narratives, making them more susceptible to hostile takeovers.

The trajectory of this story is predictable. The narrative is the company, the product, the service, the innovation, the strategy. All value stems from how people relate, thus all value stems from the narrative. The competition: who can control the narrative? Technology and business are mutual enablers.

This is the narrative-centric paradigm. The market economy is just one special case of it. It applies equally to politics and the macroeconomy. Politicians respond more quickly than others because politics is about gaining power over the narrative. No patents, copyright rules, contracts or other supportive means control it. Politicians must rely entirely on building constituencies integrated by language and personal relations.

Leaders of nations or any other incumbents serving the majority, public or private, have not two, but three strategic questions to manage:

1. How will our narrative become their narrative?
2. How will it remain ours once it is theirs?
3. How will our narrative become the incumbent narrative?

Being oppositional can be a good strategy for the first two questions. Opposing something that everyone already relates to is a quick way of making everyone relate to the opposition. The opposition cannot lose its narrative to the incumbent, normally the main competitor for it, because the incumbent can’t start opposing himself. But the oppositional narrative cannot become an incumbent narrative, because if the incumbent disappears the oppositional narrative disappears, too. The essence of the incumbent narrative is about leading, not opposing.

With this introduction to narrative-centric thought, let’s analyze a real life example.

CASE: AN ANALYSIS OF STEVE JOBS IPHONE KEYNOTE

Steve Jobs was Bob’s opposite. He was totally focused on the narrative, knew the importance of owning it and was a grand master of the three strategic questions. When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone at the MacExpo on January 7, 2007 he transformed the smartphone narrative. A narrative-centric analysis might suggest that his aim was to destroy the smartphone concept and replace it with his iPhone concept.

He starts by presenting his credentials:

“Every once in awhile, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. One’s very fortunate if you get to work on just one of these in your career. Apple’s been very fortunate. It’s been able to introduce a few of these into the world. In 1984, we introduced the Macintosh. It didn’t just change Apple, it changed the whole computer industry. In 2001, we introduced the first iPod, and it didn’t just change the way we all listen to music, it changed the entire music industry.”

He then attacks the ‘smartphone’ concept, trashing the name, definition and narrative:

“The most advanced phones are called ‘smart phones.’ So they say. And they typically combine a phone plus some e-mail capability, plus they say it’s the Internet. It’s sort of the baby Internet, into one device, and they all have these plastic little keyboards on them. And the problem is that they’re not so smart and they’re not so easy to use, so if you kinda make a… Business School 101 graph of the smart axis and the easy-to-use axis, phones, regular cell phones are kinda right there, they’re not so smart, and they’re — you know — not so easy to use. But smart phones are definitely a little smarter, but they actually are harder to use. They’re really complicated. Just for the basic stuff a hard time figuring out how to use them. “

Then he distances himself from it and presents the ‘iPhone’ in its place:

“Well, we don’t wanna do either one of these things. What we wanna do is make a leapfrog product that is way smarter than any mobile device has ever been, and super-easy to use. This is what iPhone is. OK?”

He now targets the smartphone custodians:

“Here’s four smart phones, right? Motorola Q, the BlackBerry, Palm Treo, Nokia E62 — the usual suspects.”

He attacks every way people relate to the smartphone, saying they will relate better to the iPhone. Here, for example, the stylus is replace by gestures:

“Now, how are we gonna communicate this? We don’t wanna carry around a mouse, right? So what are we gonna do? Oh, a stylus, right? We’re gonna use a stylus. No. No. Who wants a stylus? You have to get em and put em away, and you lose em. Yuck. Nobody wants a stylus. So let’s not use a stylus. We’re gonna use the best pointing device in the world. We’re gonna use a pointing device that we’re all born with — we’re born with ten of them. We’re gonna use our fingers. We’re gonna touch this with our fingers. “

Jobs did not once call the iPhone a smartphone. His strategy: kill “smartphone”, replace it with “iPhone”, a word that he legally owned. The iPhone is not a smartphone. A smartphone is not smart.

Google trends showed a skyrocketing of ‘iPhone’ in the following years, with a corresponding decline of ‘smartphone’ — a negative correlation. But ‘Smartphone’ returned with ‘Android’ in 2010 — a positive correlation. The Android copied much of the iPhone definition and narrative, rejuvenating the non-proprietary word ‘smartphone.’ Jobs was no longer sole custodian of the narrative and it was being spread under a name he did not control. Apple had become the dominant custodian of the smartphone, a much larger market than the iPhone, and would contribute to its strength: it’s more powerful to be the custodian of a competitive market than to own a product. But a major part of the iPhone definition and narrative were now in the public domain: apps, touch, all the important ways people related to it. Comparing the old smartphone to the iPhone was like comparing apples and oranges. That is what Jobs had wanted.

I believe that Jobs did not want to own the smartphone narrative, and that his iPhone keynote was an initially successful attempt to destroy the word. I showed the analysis above to a friend who, as it turned out, had worked directly with Jobs on the launch — the analysis hits the mark, he says. Confirmation!

Next article in the ‘Commemities’ series : Defining Narrative-Centric Innovation