We all drink at the fire hose of connectivity yet thirst still for substantive conversation, Sherry Turkle, Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT, observed recently in the New York Times (4-22-12). We have sacrificed meaningful conversation and relationship skills for “mere connection” and transactional “friendships.” It seems Facebook, texts, emails, tweets, crowd-sourcing and other social-media induced behaviors are really more media than social.
Turkle has devoted her career to examining and understanding the interactions of humans with technology and how they influence one another. It doesn’t take an advanced degree to know what she is talking about as most of us experience it every day. And social media’s impact on substantive innovating can be debilitating.
According to Turkle, in contrast to messaging, “face-to-face conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience. . .as we ramp up the volume and velocity of online connections, we start to expect faster answers. To get these, we ask one another simpler questions: we dumb down our communications, even on the most important matters,” diminishing our chances for reflection.
Personally, this happens in my own life, too. I used to daydream or reflect when a break came in the middle of a busy day. Now, sadly enough, when those moments appear I check my mobile for messages.
Professionally, I see this happening more and more, too. Hardly an hour goes by when I am facilitating a workshop—an intense face-to-face conversation—that someone checks in on his or her mobile device and checks out of the conversation. He stops listening to those talking around him, even to himself. Social norms don’t enable us to create what Turkle calls “device-free” zones. Yet allowing electronic interruptions subtly erodes empathetic listening and understanding, both of which are essential to innovating efforts. Thanks to Paula Rosch, a veteran innovator and principal of The Paula Rosch Group, for bringing Professor Turkle to our attention.
We used to differentiate the terms “creativity” and “innovation.” Creativity meant coming up with new ideas while innovation meant bringing those ideas to market. Now innovation means creativity and it seems we are losing our “connectivity” and relationship with reality. Perhaps this tendency of words to morph their meaning is inevitable. Yes, creative skill and capability are certainly involved in innovating, but so too are knowledge, knowledge-creation, empathy and awareness of prior art. We should remember Peter Drucker’s observation that “the bright idea” is the least reliable source of innovation.
Like Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs in psychology, we have thought much about the hierarchies of learning and creating in this information age. Perhaps we should also consider the hierarchy of communicating as well—the necessary third leg of the stool in our digitally connected age.
The basic phenomenon of innovating is not creating ideas alone nor just discovering new knowledge, neither is it the combination of these two. Something else is needed—genuine communication through dialogue. We need to value and create spaces for innovators to play and eat together to socialize and converse face-to-face. While innovating requires a dynamic network of connections, it also requires patience to listen, wisdom to discern and trust to engage in conversations—the old-fashioned kind—where two or more people gather together at the same time and same place just to talk, and listen.
This article was originally published in Innovating Perspectives in May 2012. For this and other back issues of our newsletter, please visit our website at innovationsthatwork.com or call (415) 387-1270.
Turkle has devoted her career to examining and understanding the interactions of humans with technology and how they influence one another. It doesn’t take an advanced degree to know what she is talking about as most of us experience it every day. And social media’s impact on substantive innovating can be debilitating.
According to Turkle, in contrast to messaging, “face-to-face conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience. . .as we ramp up the volume and velocity of online connections, we start to expect faster answers. To get these, we ask one another simpler questions: we dumb down our communications, even on the most important matters,” diminishing our chances for reflection.
Personally, this happens in my own life, too. I used to daydream or reflect when a break came in the middle of a busy day. Now, sadly enough, when those moments appear I check my mobile for messages.
Professionally, I see this happening more and more, too. Hardly an hour goes by when I am facilitating a workshop—an intense face-to-face conversation—that someone checks in on his or her mobile device and checks out of the conversation. He stops listening to those talking around him, even to himself. Social norms don’t enable us to create what Turkle calls “device-free” zones. Yet allowing electronic interruptions subtly erodes empathetic listening and understanding, both of which are essential to innovating efforts. Thanks to Paula Rosch, a veteran innovator and principal of The Paula Rosch Group, for bringing Professor Turkle to our attention.
We used to differentiate the terms “creativity” and “innovation.” Creativity meant coming up with new ideas while innovation meant bringing those ideas to market. Now innovation means creativity and it seems we are losing our “connectivity” and relationship with reality. Perhaps this tendency of words to morph their meaning is inevitable. Yes, creative skill and capability are certainly involved in innovating, but so too are knowledge, knowledge-creation, empathy and awareness of prior art. We should remember Peter Drucker’s observation that “the bright idea” is the least reliable source of innovation.
Like Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs in psychology, we have thought much about the hierarchies of learning and creating in this information age. Perhaps we should also consider the hierarchy of communicating as well—the necessary third leg of the stool in our digitally connected age.
The basic phenomenon of innovating is not creating ideas alone nor just discovering new knowledge, neither is it the combination of these two. Something else is needed—genuine communication through dialogue. We need to value and create spaces for innovators to play and eat together to socialize and converse face-to-face. While innovating requires a dynamic network of connections, it also requires patience to listen, wisdom to discern and trust to engage in conversations—the old-fashioned kind—where two or more people gather together at the same time and same place just to talk, and listen.
This article was originally published in Innovating Perspectives in May 2012. For this and other back issues of our newsletter, please visit our website at innovationsthatwork.com or call (415) 387-1270.
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