EXCLUSIVE ARTICLE: Blending Technological And Social Innovation Josephine Green

If you only concentrate on technology research then you invariably get technology innovation, but if you also research the social and the cultural, then you get social innovation. Technology and social innovation promises a more balanced quality of life and a more inspiring future.

We have had five successive technological revolutions in the last 200 years, from the industrial to coal and steam to steel and electricity to oil and petro-chemicals to information and, in each successive one, a new techno-economic and also social context has invariably emerged. However, given the West’s love affair with a rationalistic and technological approach, and contrary to historical evidence, too often attention and emphasis is given to the technological and economic aspects of change and not to the social aspects.

Taken to the extreme, a technological and economic determinism drives the assumption that the future will arise out of a continuum of technology roadmaps and market forces. Put simply: that technology and economics determines the future. But stepping out of the box a moment the question is actually, do they and, perhaps more importantly, should they?

These questions are vital today, given the increasing power and invasiveness of technology and the market. Today’s technology acceleration and saturation is raising the issue of whether technology is part of the solution or part of the problem. There is concern that technology growth is there primarily to drive economic welfare as opposed to social welfare, and therefore whether technology will in fact create an improved or a diminished quality of life in the future. Even the very logic that technology and the market are the engines of growth is suspect. History teaches us that technology truly becomes a growth engine when, and only when, it is accompanied by social innovation. New technology in old contexts doesn’t take off. Rather history shows us that as each techno-economic-social context emerges, the social has an important role in “ liberating” the potential of technology as an enabler. Why? Because any new emerging technologies have to be relevant, meaningful and appropriate to people’s changing lives and to society’s emerging needs Only in this way can the new technologies reach their true potential and can companies and society grow and prosper.

Perhaps here an example will help. Think of the health sector. There are a number of new drivers pushing for change including an ageing population, lack of public resources and greater health concern and consciousness. The technology is less the problem; the challenge is to define from a social perspective a new health solution connecting home, patient, doctor, hospital, etc. that is socially and culturally relevant and appropriate for the future. It is less about the technology and more about social innovation, social relevance, new social contexts, new business models, and much imagination.

Today, as we journey from the industrial system to the information/knowledge system, there is a great need for imagination and for visions of a more sustainable and people-relevant future. But, instead of bold thinking, we are given more of the same (new technology in old clothes!) — more efficiency, more productivity, more performance, more and more, faster and faster. A mantra of good, better, best… to… bust!  Why bust? Because at an environmental, social and personal level the system appears to be increasingly dysfunctional. Consequently people are actually looking for new solutions and ways of doing things that cost less in terms of personal and planetary energy and that make more sense for tomorrow: new ways of consuming, new forms of association, new living solutions, new mobile solutions, new balances beyond GDP and productivity, towards sustainability. What can we do to readjust the balance? Think boldly, think creatively, think socially.

Doing it Differently

Within Philips, Philips Design has for ten years been exploring a new approach to thinking about the future, and to innovation. We believe that the future is about technology and social innovation and that while technology is still important, it becomes more an enabler in adding value for the individual and the collective. This means putting people at the center of our processes and business. It means thinking differently and doing differently.

First and foremost, a diverse team of futurists, psychologists, historians, anthropologists and designers carry out research into Society, Cultures and People, globally and regionally. They research:

• the deeper currents in social values shaping tomorrow’s world, drawing on futures and social studies
• the expressions of these values as they manifest in the culture, drawing on cultural and design studies
• the needs and behaviors of people in their everyday lives and activities, drawing on ethnography and the human sciences.

Thinking about the future has to have insight both on the longer-term possibilities and the realities of today. To understand this we need depth more than breadth. Quantitative data gives way to more creative and qualitative approaches that feed the creative process. This combination of creative and analytical methods, of design driven and research driven approaches, enriches our knowledge and understanding

A major challenge is to translate this information and knowledge into the innovation process so that it becomes accessible and useful to those engaged in the process. For this we have a number of creative tools, which are both visual and text based.

The primary aim of this socio-cultural research and the creative tools is to anchor the future and innovation in the human and trigger people to think creatively out of the box. How do we label this research? Is it futures or foresighting or is it market research? Rather it is at the interface of these different disciplines and is trying to forge a new qualitative “human” storytelling into the futures process. As such the Society, Cultures, People competence sits well in Philips Design, where, under the vision of the CEO, Stefano Marzano, it enriches Design’s role as the link between technology and people.

If the content is different, so is the process. This is becoming especially true for Philips, whose vision of Ambient Intelligence and Ambient Experiences presupposes a connected and networked future whereby the intelligence and the smartness is embedded in our every day environment and intuitively supports our daily lives and experiences. Such experiences extend across the lives of our users and across any one Product Division. This future reality, together with the growing need for more information, service and solutions and for more systems transformation, means that no single discipline or function has all the know how or all the answers. Consequently our innovation process is multi disciplinary and multi-functional and involves social researchers, technology researchers, designers, marketers and business people, often from across the product divisions. Socio-cultural, technology and market/business trends and insights are exchanged and aligned and these form the basis of the creative process towards new socio-cultural and business value.

The complexity of more systems-oriented future solutions also means that other stakeholders are essential to the process. Not only are all the answers not in one product division, neither are they all in Philips. We cannot and do not have all the expertise in house, so bringing in customers and users also becomes vital to the success of the outcome. At Philips we are now committed to this approach and are innovating through a network of partnerships and alliances involving customers, research institutes, other companies, etc. The High Tech campus in Eindhoven, Holland, hosts MiPlaza, a research center where Philips researchers work side by side with their counterparts from other companies, universities, and research institutes. While such innovation management is complex, the purpose at the end is to make sense for the future and to make complexity simple. The process and the solutions may be highly complex but the use of such solutions has to be simple and satisfying. To quote Lin Yutang, “Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.” Or Albert Einstein: “Everything should be made as simple as possible but not simpler.”

By involving all stakeholders, not only do you come out with rich and robust solutions but there is also more possibility of implementation given the involvement and buy-in of all the players. It reflects a move from a consumer society to a stakeholder society, and is where future thinking and foresighting has to go. Perhaps the one strongest learning point is that the future will be less about “predicting” it and more about collaboratively “designing” it.

Role of Design

I hope I have driven home the point that we need more transformational innovation in this period of great change. That we need a holistic and inclusive innovation process to support this and that it needs to be human centered, with socio-cultural content and context, if it is to be successful and make sense. We need creativity, difference and boldness, and even more inefficiency, to let the truly new and imaginative emerge. This brings us to Design. Too often companies have dismissed design as a styling discipline. While the ability of design to give form and aesthetics and style to something is very important and can offer strong differentiation and higher value, there is more to design. Thinking about designers just in terms of stylists is to miss the point.

Design is a business tool, but it is also a cultural tool. Design has always been a bridge between technology and culture and people. In a period of such change this cultural aspect can enhance a company’s ability to interpret relevance for the future, while the designer’s sensibility towards the human can enhance a company’s ability to create relevancy.

Design is a creative discipline. The very discipline, education, and training of designers are in the realm of problem solving through creative solutions. In my capacity as Visiting Professor at the Glasgow School of Art and Design I am amazed (not being a designer myself but an historian) at how designers take problems, and the resolving of those problems, in their every day practice. They are not disturbed or confused by the problems but challenged to find solutions creatively. This can enhance a company’s innovative capacity

Design’s position in a company to cross over functions and product divisions ideally places it, together with its creativity training, to facilitate and integrate stakeholder innovation processes. Philips Design, under the vision and leadership of Stefano Marzano, has developed this design culture.