[Advisors] Re: [Advisors] RE: [Advisors] FW: New discussion Industry Leaders Take ŒInnova tion Nation¹ to the Hill: Call for communit y guidance on how to improve Canada¹s innovat ion eco-system

[Garth Graham]

On 2011-11-07, at 10:44 PM, michael gurstein wrote:
> They ignore the broader cultural and social context (ecology) from =
which "innovation" necessarily springs and from where a very great deal of useful and valuable innovation comes quite directly.  I've argued this with folks up and down the Canadian landscape (and even in my blog at http://wp.me/pJQl5-20 and elsewhere) to absolutely no avail. (There is on the other hand significant support for community innovation in Canada in other sectors such as social enterprise etc.etc.).

Ever since I heard Ursula Franklin define "technology" as, "the way we do things around here," (i.e. as a dynamic process and NOT the products that result from that process), I've argued for that point of view.  It has a peculiarly Canadian (i.e. McLuhan) advantage, in that it avoids technological determinism.  It shows that products of technological processes evolve but are not the causes of that evolution.  They are rather expressions or symptoms of it.  The tools we use around here reveal the ways we are informing our worlds. 

Technology policy in Canada is based on the premise that the technologies cause change.  That's a false premise.  I echo Michael's experience that you argue for a societal based understanding to no avail, although there are some signs that following this path may be getting a little less lonely:

- In, The Nature of Technology, W. Brian Arthur describes technological change as an evolutionary process that grows from pieces, themselves technologies, that already exist.

- In, Technology and Social Agency, the anthropologist Marcia-Anne Dobres defines technology as "an ongoing and unfinished process- a verb of action and interaction - through which people society and materials together weave and reweave the meaningful conditions of everyday life." (p4).

- In What Technology Wants, Kevin Kelly notes, "Every tool in the hand presents civilization (all those alive) with with another way of thinking about something, another view of life, another choice.  Every idea that is made real (technology) enlarges the space we have to construct our lives." (p351).  Thus he finds we have a moral obligation to increase the best of technology (in our case, the best of community-based uses of ICTs for development).

I've always understood innovation as a very simple process, completely divorced from institutional structure but in reaction to it.  Somebody somewhere says, I can't stand this any more," and fixes it.

In participatory community development, I've found that the best idea, the one that the group recognizes as an answer to its puzzle, usually originates from the most unlikely person in the room.

GG