Why Digital Technology And Innovation Are Not The Same Thing

You want potato and I like potatoe, You want tomato and I like tomatoe;

Potato, potatoe, tomato, tomatoe! Let’s name the entire thing off!

Brothers George and Ira Gershwin wrote the tune “Let’s Name the Complete Factor Off” for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’ memorable roller-skating duet within the 1937 movie Shall We Dance, during which the couple’s disagreement over pronunciation is the reflection of larger troubles of their relationship.

Whereas most Individuals and Brits will agree that these dinner-table staples are the identical factor regardless of the way you pronounce them, the identical isn’t true of digital know-how and innovation. Regardless of usually getting used synonymously they don’t seem to be the identical, and focusing an excessive amount of on digital know-how on the expense of innovation can forestall organizations from reaching their full innovation potential. Sources as different as The United Nations Refugee Agency and weblog web site The Magical Trip have weighed in, but it may be obscure the distinction and why digital know-how and innovation each are essential. However no have to name the entire thing off – right here’s methods to put digital know-how and innovation into context to greatest promote innovation in your group.

Britannica formally defines technology as “the applying of scientific data to the sensible goals of human life or, as it’s generally phrased, to the change and manipulation of the human surroundings.” With the blurring of strains between the bodily and digital world which have occurred as a part of the Fourth Industrial, so, too, have strains been blurred between use of the phrases know-how and digital know-how, such that an assumption is usually made that every one new know-how entails the usage of computer systems, networks, or the web of issues (IoT).

One generally accepted definition of innovation, then again, is “the introduction of recent issues, concepts or methods of doing one thing”(Oxford Learners Dictionaries). Mentioned one other manner, innovation is the tactic by which these new issues – generally involving digital know-how, generally not – are developed, launched, and utilized. There isn’t any doubt that improvements such because the wheel, crop rotation, and penicillin modified the world, lengthy earlier than knowledge started to be saved in 0s and 1s.

Innovation mindset is what brings new issues, concepts, and methods of doing one thing to life – being unwilling to simply accept the established order, continually pushing for enchancment, and being impatient. Non-digital innovation might be so simple as a change in enterprise course of – empowering customer-facing workers to problem refunds and not using a supervisor’s approval, for instance. Or it may be as lifesaving because the Apollo 13 crew’s use of duct tape, cardboard, a plastic bag, and a spacesuit hose to restore a connection to the CO2 scrubbers and save the lads and the mission.

Whereas it might be tempting to concentrate on digital know-how, company and organizational innovation applications accomplish that at their peril. Recognition of non-digital innovation is essential to foster an innovation mindset. If these applications acknowledge, fund, and reward solely digital innovation, which is frequent, many non-digital workers will really feel it doesn’t apply to them. They may basically decide out of innovation, to the detriment of the way forward for their group which might have benefited from their innovation contributions, had they been impressed to develop them.

These inspirational non-digital know-how improvements vary from the on a regular basis, to some altering industries and the world:

· An environmental engineer at Jacobs wanted a centrifuge for samples he was taking within the area however didn’t have one. He customary a area centrifuge out of a Walmart salad spinner, saving the challenge schedule.

· Seabees are the U.S. Navy’s fight building pressure. Out of necessity, they’re excellent innovators who use artistic drawback fixing to make do with what they’ve within the area. Along with on a regular basis expeditionary innovation, one of the crucial impactful Seabee improvements was use of the standardized steel pontoon, which helped the Allies win World Warfare II once they had been used to quickly assemble piers, causeways, and different buildings that permitted the touchdown of forces on enemy

shores.

· A report by McKinsey & Company discovered that that building is among the many least digitized of all industries. The introduction of the modern SpeedCore concrete-filled composite steel plate shear wall has led to advantages starting from decreased schedule, to elevated blast resistance, to enhanced security and improved high quality associated to building tolerance points. The 850-ft. tall Rainier Sq. Tower in Seattle, Washington, which opened in 2021, took solely ten months to high out with this modern method.

· PureMadi is a nonprofit group based in 2011 by way of the collaboration of scholars and professors on the College of Virginia to supply and distribute cheap ceramic water therapy in Africa. The filters enable households to wash water of their dwelling by way of remarkably non-digital innovation that makes use of the pure filtration and disinfection properties of the ceramic and silver supplies. The staff has continued to innovate, with the newest iteration being a silver-embedded ceramic pill known as MadiDrop+ that’s dropped right into a 10- to 20-liter water storage container to deal with water for a yr.

If these examples aren’t sufficient, you’ll be able to watch some previous MacGyver episodes for comparable inspiration! Whereas not everybody must vogue a cling glider out of a downed satellite tv for pc, all of us can definitely discover methods to problem the established order by innovating in our personal areas.

Take a look at my different columns here.