When it comes to innovation, many people's first reaction may be a variety of tall words: digitalization, carbon neutrality, metacosm, familiar economy, new energy vehicles, artificial intelligence, intelligent manufacturing and so on.
This often gives more people a misunderstanding, "innovation" only stays on those more macro and abstract things, many years ago everyone was talking about "Internet +", but the real for the birth and use of the Internet technology, a lot of understanding is just a dragonfly shallow taste.
Similarly, going back to the word "innovation", in this day and age, as large as an enterprise to an individual, everyone is mentioning innovation, but not many people really understand innovation.
In the book "The Origin of Innovation", British scientist Matt Ridley dug into the historical details in detail, and restored a true story of innovation for the general public through historical interpretation of the content of different fields such as energy, transportation, equipment and communications.
As you read this article, you can also think with an inquirer mindset: When we talk about innovation, what should we talk about? Enjoy the following:
Common sense jun | have something to say
Author: Ray Xiansen
Source: Common Sense of Management (ID: Guanlidechangshi)
01
The emergence of innovation
Where did it start?
On December 17, 1903, the first aircraft in human history successfully flew into the sky, and some people say that this is an innovative and breakthrough moment in the history of human flight.
But if you know a little more about the Wright Brothers story, you'll find that this story of innovation isn't that simple.
The flight lasted only a few seconds that day, and only once. If the weather had not been satisfactory that day, and there had been no strong headwinds, even this flight would not have been successful.
If you look deeper, you'll find that such a breakthrough moment is really rare, because real life is more of a failure after failure.
According to the author's point of view in the book:
The process of innovation requires considerable effort, and it is not done overnight, but needs to follow a certain operating basis and underlying logic.
And most of the innovations are not suddenly bursting out of light in the endless night, but from a small Spark, growing into a wisp of flame, and finally converging into a mountain fire.
Take the example of the Wright brothers flight experiment, as early as 7 years before their successful test flight, an American astronomer named Langley tried many flight tests, and in 1896, he successfully flew in the air for 90 seconds, and the distance reached more than 900 meters.
But the later experiments ended more in failure, why did the same environment, but in the end, the Wright brothers successfully flew into the blue sky?
In the book, the author proposes an analysis from 3 angles:
1. Have a certain foundation
The Wright brothers themselves are car repairmen, in today's terms, they have a certain technical foundation, and they have consulted many professionals in order to achieve power flight. You'll even get inspired to observe how birds fly in the sky.
2. Directional inventions
Regarding the flight experiment, the Wright brothers did not intend to build an airplane from the very beginning, but to build a glider. And in order to improve the success rate, they also conducted thousands of tests on the model machine in the wind tunnel, making very comprehensive and meticulous measurements.
3. Solve the problem of professionalism
In the end, they devoted almost all of their time to work and design, and the Wright brothers solved professional problems such as propellers and engines.
Of course, in the book, the author creatively makes a point: even without the Wright brothers, someone would have let the plane soar in the first decade of the 20th century.
Because there were already engines at that time, many people began to try to create air vehicles, and in addition to mastering and breaking through the core technology, the rest was repeated trial and correction.
The success of the Wright brothers was that they didn't expect to build a flying machine in the first place, but realized that they were just out of a process of iteration.
In addition, there are a large number of cases in the book to prove that innovation must be based on a large number of foundations, not a castle in the air.
These little-known historical details mark that, as the time comes, the elements of invention emerge, and the underlying logic of the vast majority of innovations exists in one silent iteration after another.
For those who are obsessed with innovation, this is obviously a simple truth that cannot be avoided.
02
What kind of innovation
Is it truly valuable innovation?
If real historical figures are remembered, it is because they often make history or influence the course of history.
So you might as well recall: what innovations are destined to be written into history?
In the book, the author shares a case that we can see everywhere in our daily life, I will sell it first, and then you will look down.
London in the 19th century, already a world-famous metropolis, when with the large growth of the urban population, the sewage system was seriously inadequate, although there was already a flush toilet at that time, but it had a fatal flaw:
Flush toilets can only flush away sewage, but they cannot remove odors.
Many people thought of various methods, but in the end it did not help, so they had to continue to use the outside toilet.
At this time, there was a handicraft maker named Cumming, who usually mainly made clocks and organs, but it was such a person who could not fight with the eight rods of public health, and actually invented something that was later called "S-tube".
It is a kind of elbow attached to the bottom of the toilet, when the water of the toilet takes away the excrement, the elbow can store a small amount of water in the elbow, and the water is directly isolated to seal the odor.
After that, another innovator improved the S-tube into a U-shaped tube, truly promoting the revolutionary process of the evolution of sanitation in the city. Overnight, London became a cosmopolitan city without a smell.
Isn't this, you might say, a story of improving the flush toilet, and how can it be worth writing in history?
Then you read on.
In 1954, a freighter from the port of Brooklyn in the United States unloaded 5,000 tons of cargo at the Port of Bremenhaven in Germany. The products that make up these 5,000 tons of goods are indeed diverse, with a total of nearly 200,000 kinds of things.
Their packaging covers almost every kind of packaging you can think of, boxes, bags, barrels, cardboard boxes, and so on.
The shipment was shipped to Brooklyn in 1156 batches from more than 100 cities in the United States, and it took a full 6 days to load the goods alone, while it took another 11 days to go from the United States to the port of Germany, and then count the 4 days of unloading from the port of Bremenhaven.
The cost of such a trip is as high as more than 200,000 US dollars, of which loading and unloading costs account for 37%, while the general maritime cost accounts for only 11%.
Later, an American freight truck driver named McLean appeared and changed the situation completely.
He did not invent the container, but built a transportation system for the container, and established standardized standards for this system, such as determining the size of the container, around this size, building a complete set of adaptation systems including factory loading, trucks, cranes, ports, etc., so that the container is truly seamless like an assembly line into each step of the transportation process.
If you ask about the invention, this McLean is not really the inventor of the container, but he can clearly realize that the container is embedded in a collaborative network that is more and more large and needs it.
As the author mentions in the book, there is a point:
Measuring the value of an innovation, in addition to the dimension of the technical level, actually needs to consider whether the innovation is embedded in the assistance network it is in, and see how much it can play a role.
In short, many innovations themselves do not have any technical content, but its emergence can make more and more people use, affordable, and even form a close link in the social structure, which can be regarded as a great innovation.
Speaking of which, we might as well ask ourselves if we can innovate and truly embed ourselves in a larger collaborative network to help more people who need our help?
03
Innovation at the end
It is to make human life happier
Before seeing a small story on the Internet, a netizen went to study in the UK and found that their staple food was:
Steamed potatoes, baked potatoes, fried potatoes, French fries with fish fillets, etc., are all potatoes, just like the British are particularly fond of eating potatoes, so that many people's impression of Britain is often stuck in the "country of potatoes".
There is nothing wrong with this today, but a long time ago, the potato first appeared on the American continent, and there was no potato in Eurasia.
It was the Spaniards of Europe who invaded the American continent and brought back the potatoes first, which eventually allowed this small potato to conquer the appetite of Europeans.
But all this does not seem to be as simple as the above paragraph, because when the potato enters Europe, it still encounters various resistances from many people.
First of all, objectively because of the planting time, the potato was not domesticated by humans before it was domesticated, and the cultivation cycle familiar to Europeans at that time was different, nor was it harvested in the autumn like wheat, and the habit was different.
Secondly, many British people at that time believed in the Anglican religion, and they felt that the potato was a spy sent by the Catholic Church, plus the potato was not mentioned in the Bible, and the religious and cultural atmosphere was not right.
Finally, many people boycotted the potato because some people said that the shape of the potato resembled the fingers of leprosy patients at that time, so in order to prevent being infected with leprosy, many places banned the consumption of potatoes.
Behind this story, it is also hidden in the author's intentions, as a British native, he uses such a case to tell us: behind the innovation, there must be a game and struggle with existing vested interests in the process.
Innovation also means that you need to rewrite the original social consensus, or even overturn it, for many people:
It is a long and difficult process, but once you cross the peak of cognitive ignorance and climb out of the valley of despair in your thoughts, innovation will lead you to a bright slope of enlightenment.
The American writer Walter Isaacson, the author of Jobs, once said:
"Once scientific advances are applied, they create more jobs, raise wages, shorten working hours, and let people learn how to live, thus getting rid of the heavy jobs that have been suffocating ordinary people in the past."
The point of view of this passage also coincides with the author's idea, because in their view, the end of innovation is that human life becomes happier, rather than using advanced technology to block people's yearning and pursuit of a better life.
Just like the normalized life we have experienced under the epidemic, everyone is slowly exploring a new way of life in the unfamiliar mode of the new normal: online office, contactless social networking, online consultation, cloud overtime, cloud travel and so on.
And all of this is inseparable from the creation of countless ordinary but not mediocre people in the process of continuous attempts and innovations.
04
Write at the end
History often proves to people in various reversals that the people who resisted innovation at the beginning may be fans of innovation in the future.
Just like in the 19th century, some people even chose to smash the machines in the factory building in order to resist innovation, because they were worried that innovation would destroy employment, but it turned out that the emergence of innovation was constantly liberating and increasing productivity, and continued to promote people's living standards and quality behind the scenes.
At the same time, behind this innovation, we can also find the common law of individual development, that is:
Everything evolves from simple to complex, and it is the hope of the entire universe to avoid heat death.
Whether it is the spirit or the body, it is necessary to give yourself an innovative attitude and attempt at any time, so that you can derive order from chaos and realize the change of individual entropy.
This is also the biggest but most simple inspiration this book, when it comes to the concept of "innovation", brings us ordinary people the most.
This article is authorized by the author "Common Sense of Management" (ID: Guanlidechangshi) original first published, reprinted please contact us.