Innovators

(22 Jun 2020)

How innovations generally occur? I’ve enjoyed Walter Isaacson’s books previously, so I recently decided to read “The innovators” to have some insight on the matter. It considers the development of our digital systems, which is a interesting theme since it consists of a high number of different innovations from various individuals. Also Frans Johansson’s book “The Medici Effect”, which I read last year, discusses similar themes from a slightly different point of view so I’ll share some thoughts on that also. 

Isaacson describes how our digital systems, namely computers and the internet, were developed. He nicely points out how lone inventors rarely manage to create a complete innovation (an idea which is turned into a complete product and distributed widely). Teams and organizations have dominated the generation of digital innovations. Well connected innovators who work in teams have typically been the most successful. Quite often innovations are made in such teams where there are technical talents and visionaries who can sell the idea (such as Steven Jobs and Wozniak). What was surprising in the story about the digital innovations was that quite often the innovators had the urge to combine art, science and humanism (all the way from Lovelace to Jobs). 

If you are looking for more inspiration about how individual innovations occur, the Medici Effect is a good easy-to-read option. In the book, Johansson shows how often new ideas occur in the interface between to different fields, cultures or concepts. Did you know that Charles Darwin was a geologist? Also many novel products and business concepts have originated by combining ideas from different fields, and the book offers a number of practical insights on those. The name of the book refers to the famous Medici banking family, who economically supported the development of arts and sciences and likely had a central role in the development of the Renaissance in Italy. The book gives a nice inspiration boost and demonstrates that powerful innovations can be made without high expertise or long formal education by combining existing ideas and concepts in a novel way.