The term “inno­va­tion” has stalled out and been appro­pri­at­ed by ped­dlers of fleet­ing nov­el­ty or worse. We can do better.

“As an intan­gi­ble, indi­vid­u­al­is­tic, yet strict­ly white-col­lar trait, inno­va­tion reframes the cru­el for­tunes of an unequal glob­al econ­o­my as the log­i­cal prod­ucts of a cre­ative, vision­ary bril­liance. In this new guise, the inno­va­tor retains both a touch of the prophet and a hint of the con­fi­dence man.” — John Patrick Henry

Through­out indus­tri­al­iza­tion, inno­va­tion has become increas­ing­ly a mat­ter of tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment. Eco­nom­ic nar­row-mind­ed­ness has cor­ralled inno­va­tion for com­mer­cial ends. Inno­va­tion was co-opt­ed as a tool for the infi­nite-growth machine. The last cen­tu­ry of eco­nom­ic growth has been fueled by indus­tri­al activ­i­ties that pol­lute the air we breathe and poi­son the water we drink. More pro­tec­tive poli­cies can stop this ter­ri­ble trend.

Tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion does not have to run counter to the chal­lenge of cli­mate change, it can serve as an impor­tant plat­form for solu­tions instead. As long as inno­va­tion fol­lows an imper­a­tive of eco­nom­ic growth, how­ev­er, it will have a hand in envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and the impov­er­ish­ment of peo­ple. This is the sce­nario we must most ardent­ly fight against while still uphold­ing a vision of inno­va­tion that can help get us out of the knot­ted mess we’re in.

The unend­ing cas­cade of tech­nolo­gies, prod­ucts, and ser­vices sold as inno­v­a­tive are so often lit­tle more than incre­men­tal changes to some­thing that already exists. This type of inno­va­tion rein­forces dom­i­nant par­a­digms and is inca­pable of fun­da­men­tal­ly alter­ing the most mean­ing­ful con­di­tions of soci­ety in a pos­i­tive way. If we lived in a post-scarci­ty egal­i­tar­i­an soci­ety, this would not be a prob­lem. But we do not as of yet have that luxury.

The fruits of the con­tem­po­rary age seem plen­ti­ful. The shiny toys in our pock­ets, on our desks, or in the cor­ners of our liv­ing rooms, are all gate­ways to all kinds of indul­gence. Feel­ing hun­gry and lazy? A few taps is all you need to pro­pel a piz­za right to your door. Bored? Binge your­self into a state of cata­to­nia on the lat­est sea­son of a TV show. Need to get across town in a hur­ry? Sum­mon a stranger from the Inter­net and climb into their car.

Inno­va­tion should be help­ing us to leap out­side con­ven­tion, not stream­lin­ing access to instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion. Human eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty is essen­tial­ly an attempt to make orga­ni­za­tion­al order out of the chaos of mate­r­i­al resources. This is per­formed almost uni­form­ly across the globe in line with the tenets of cap­i­tal­ism, which has cre­at­ed an order of sys­temic exploita­tion, vio­lence, and cor­rup­tion. Inno­va­tion, as a means for rad­i­cal change, there­fore car­ries a respon­si­bil­i­ty to help undo this dam­ag­ing setup.

The process of inno­va­tion is itself eth­i­cal­ly neu­tral. Intent has a great deal to do with achiev­ing innovation’s prop­er appli­ca­tion. When applied to areas like war, sur­veil­lance, and inter­ro­ga­tion, inno­va­tion can be ter­ri­fy­ing in its destruc­tive capac­i­ty. Human his­to­ry is scarred with moments in which vast amounts of human inge­nu­ity were placed in the ser­vice of wreak­ing hav­oc on life and planet.

Today, the word inno­va­tion is used in cam­paign slo­gans to sell new prod­ucts. Tomor­row, inno­va­tion could be con­sid­ered the means by which the estab­lished order is over­turned and replaced by a sys­tem sup­port­ing cre­ativ­i­ty, inclu­siv­i­ty, and evolv­ing tech­nolo­gies that help human­i­ty tran­scend every limitation.

“The time is always right to do right.” — Dr. Mar­tin Luther King Jr.

Inno­va­tion, as a spe­cial­ized field with­in the busi­ness sec­tor, will take on much greater rela­tion to a diverse range of activ­i­ties with­in cre­ative-based ecosys­tems in the com­ing decades. The source of this rever­ber­a­tion stems from the under­ly­ing need to address repair and sus­tain­able growth in all areas of life. The pri­ma­ry tools to enable this tran­si­tion will be more invis­i­ble than the blunt, phys­i­cal tools of our past. Instead, inge­nu­ity, inclu­siv­i­ty, and cre­ativ­i­ty will come into greater promi­nence as tools for pos­i­tive trans­for­ma­tion. The pri­ma­ry ingre­di­ents influ­enc­ing how inno­va­tion is prac­ticed as a dis­ci­pline until 2025 will con­tin­ue to be infor­ma­tion and emo­tions. The bet­ter these vis­i­ble and invis­i­ble qual­i­ties can be syn­chro­nized to com­ple­ment one anoth­er, the bet­ter we will learn how to bal­ance our intel­lects and feel­ings in the pur­suit of har­mo­nious ini­tia­tives. As an inno­va­tion stu­dio, our fac­ul­ty for imag­in­ing scenes from a pos­i­tive future entail plac­ing a pre­mi­um on uplift­ing nar­ra­tives. We don’t see apoc­a­lypse in our future. We have enough his­to­ry of vio­lence in movies and video games to give us a sense of the apoc­a­lypse. Instead, with the extinc­tions of oth­er species on this plan­et begin­ning to enter the mil­lions, we know enough to stop going down this course of action that tears at the fab­ric of life. With aware­ness to all in need of repair, we want to fig­ure out how to chan­nel our ener­gies into active­ly cre­at­ing a world in excel­lent health, con­di­tion, and consciousness.