It takes time and effort to breathe life into making something new in the hope of generating value or impact, such as is my hope with this website. That’s why it needed more than a single posting to officially greet the world. In software development, a “Hello World!” application is simply your first app that demonstrates your capability to bring something to “life” from set of logical instructions – or code. Using logic to create, and bring new life, new value, to the world has changed considerably since my first Visual Basic course in 2006.
Object Oriented Programming, software re-usability, and the communities of developers around the world had brought the Web Era into the mainstream only a few years before. Prior, computer engineering based on a Platform of semi-conductors and logical operations of simple input and output was the platform from which value was derived. First the military, and then large corporations were able to leverage these expensive and high maintenance machines and the engineering and knowledge it took to sustain them and produce new value. Prior to the semi-conductor Platform was electricity and related infrastructure creating the Electric Platform. Before it, the printing press allowed books to become a simplified platform for consistency in knowledge transfer.
Now, Platforms at varying levels of granularity have been popping up based on previously established platforms. Examples are aplenty, such as Facebook, WordPress, Twitter, IFTTT, and there are those which are still being defined such as Omni-Source Data Analytics, Internet of Things, and… and the list could go on. The point is, humanity keeps building on top of what we have previously made. Leveraging each piece of solid “Platform” as a building block to meet new needs; create new value; decrease costs and limitations.
The Facebook Platform, for example, has not created the level of revolutionary global impact as say electricity, but it has touched nearly as many people. However, It has spread at a speed much faster after initial conception than the Platform of electricity because the Platforms to enable it were already in place. A single simple idea, a single person, can now impact the entire world at much greater speed and with much more strength than ever before in history.
This may seem logical, as this increase in impact has always been the case throughout history. And it is logical and obvious from our perspective. The speed at which “change” is changing, has always been increasing. But now, we can see the iterations of change, Platforms being built on top of Platforms, Industries being disrupted that have been unchanged for generations. The pace at which change is changing is so fast, that its conceivable that we will soon see iterations of change, “Generations” of Platforms that we miss completely because we go on vacation for a week.
That is all conceptual of course, but part of the intent of greeting the world with a big “Hello!” is to set the context for those following to recognize that each of us are now the benefactors of the great labors put into creating those base Platforms that enable individuals to have such power and freedom.
I would argue that prior to the free and instantaneous flow of information, that of which is now granted by the Internet Platform, the greater populous of the world were not free. Or not as free as we thought we were. But that will be a future topic of discussion.
The amount of an individual’s time invested towards meeting a goal is able to be leveraged to meet exponentially more “work” apples-to-apples, than the generation that came before. However, we are now setting larger goals. The questions I have are – “Are the goals we are setting large enough?” and “How do we get more of society involved?”
I believe the concept of this difference between the relative power of generations is generally acknowledged or felt (maybe expected or taken for granted) by our so-called generation of “Millennials” and the already emerging “Generation Z”. But pushing the concept of Innovation is important because I believe that it helps us to remember that we, as a society, have not yet “won” anything. We do not “deserve” anything. And, on a related note, we have only the rights for which we are willing to fight.
In software engineering, we refer to those that will use our creations, those that leverage the entities that we bring to life, as “The Users”. We are all The Users now.
Two extremes exist:
- We, Society, stay “The Users” and enjoy the fruits of previous generations’ labor, or
- We all leverage the Platforms which we have at our fingertips to become Creators of New, to become Innovators
Yes, to become a Creator/Innovator, you must be a User! The difference is in the intent. Are you Using to create something of new value, or Using to consume value?
I was recently asked what drives me, what makes me so “passionate” about this Innovation thing. After thinking for some time, I was able to respond with “I want to make an impact”. But I felt that answer wasn’t good enough. “How will my “passion” for innovation make an impact?” I kept asking myself.
This website/blog/rambling is the answer. The answer for now, at least. If I can transition at least one individual from Category #1: User to Category #2: Innovator, I will have made that impact.
As mentioned in a previous post, defining “innovation” can be challenging. For the context of this discussion, consider an Innovator as the opposite of a User.
Please comment with an affirmation of transition or your story if you have made this transition! Or to create exponentially more impact, re-post this!.
Innovatorial 