Innovation and chronocentrism

On Wikipedia, chronocentrism is defined as the belief that a certain state of humanity is superior to all previous and/or future times.

At the Web 2.0 Expo recently, Scott Berkun, an author, teacher and public speaker on creative thinking and innovation, defined chronocentrism as being prone to focus on the present and overstating the value of what we are doing right now.

Berkun’s point was that innovation becomes a commodity whenever chronocentrism is present.

The point of me bringing up the definition is that I see and read about media companies getting stuck in this grandiose sense of tradition and that chronocentrism inhibits their ability to innovate.

It’s getting better in the media industry, I feel, but as I am beginning to realize personally, being able to put a definition to a behavior is key to understanding how and why the need for change.

And I don’t want to get stuck on the word innovation either, which I think is almost a buzzword anymore. And I’m not about jump on Rob Curley’s bandwagon either. But, to me, innovation is basically doing cool shit that no one else is doing, and having fun while you do it.

Berkun defined innovation as a process that begins or introduces something for the first time. He further explained that innovation is always relative, that innovation is the multiple ways the innovator tries to solve a problem and that innovation really means exploration.

But the most important is this, Berkun said:

If you want to be an innovator you can’t do it in the abstract. You have to focus on a specific person or a specific problem. Then the definition has meaning. The sooner you can focus on a specific, the easier it is to innovate.

Berkun did a wrap up of his experience at Web 2.0 on his blog, and I’m going to tie a statement he wrote there to one he used in his talk at Web 2.0.

But note that the statement above is devoid of hyperbole like revolution, ground breaking, disruptive or transformative, things that are entirely subjective. If you identify a real problem well enough, you never need those words: the people who have those problems will naturally find what you do revolutionary if you really solve their problems.

Berkun has a lot of good stuff on innovation, too much to share here. He went through a 92-slide presentation at Web 2.0 that I’m glad I attended.

The one action item he suggested for folks that I think is a cool idea, but not new, is to give employees a free play day to experiment, be creative and prototype. And then, at the end of the day, make sure the employees demo whatever they came up with in front of an audience.

Tags: innovation

Author: Jason Kristufek