The title might sound self-contradictory. I will try to
elaborate and unveil a logical congruence. Let me start by asserting that we at
99X Technology share a firm, unique definition when we coin the term “Research
and Innovation”. That extends way beyond the common notion of searching for unknown.
Learning to research and innovation constitutes a vital skill that marks a
transformation in a person’s career, similar to a beginner learning to swim.
When you start learning swimming as an absolute novice you will be confronted
with enough reasons to give up in the middle while deciding that there is
something fundamentally wrong with your body that hinders you from drifting
through water. Training sessions will be hard while yielding no immediate
result. It will look like you have hit a plateau that can never be surpassed.
However, if you are courageous enough to keep on trying with faith, at some
instance, all of a sudden, you will find yourself making your way to the deep
end. Result is sudden and triumphant, but not incremental. It is discouraging
enough in the beginning as it looks like you are not getting any result. Same
narration is valid regarding research and innovation. Intention of a researcher
is not to exceed the existing thing by a fractional increment, but to generate
a new paradigm that makes the existing thing obsolete. Good research and
innovation strive to generate new kinds of values rather than quantitatively
incremental values. Therefore any serious research and innovation attempt would
look from the surface as being insane and impossible. In this ground, only the
non-quitters will win.
Recent macro economic turbulences have stressed the
dominating political economic system in the contemporary world, capitalism, to
reevaluate its principles. Abnormally high frequency of recessions indicates
that economies should critically probe into the cornerstones of industrial
capitalism that is underpinned by speculated value. Twenty first century world
needs companies that generate truly authentic social value and only those
companies will flourish. This paradigm shift pushes every player to start worrying
about values created for and values borrowed from people, nature and future
generations in addition to shareholder value. Empowering customers rather than
exploiting, keeping constant conversation around products, creating a value
cycle that replenishes resources are the prominent traits of new value system.
Companies can no longer enjoy product lock-ins to dominate consumers. The
working formula is to give as much control as possible to users and to maintain
a platform of interdependence that facilitates recharging of organization’s
resources using collective wisdom in community. Players like Google have
already proven this by achieving monumental growth and sustainability. A winner
in the new world order is a company that can align its strengths along this
curve. Challenge for research departments would be to harness the collective
thinking in organizations to create unprecedented, disruptive values. This is a
challenge that would leave even the biggest company helpless as a single
entity. It is necessary that organizations put enough emphasis on outside-in
approach to create platforms for different talents to coalesce. Universities
are vital in this picture as think tanks with unmolded, young minds.
When somebody tells you that he is into research and
innovation you should not forget to ask the key question: “What do you mean?”.
Above is our short answer to this in both micro psychological and macro
economic levels. This answer is bundled with the friendly invitation for all of
you young and great minds to become active players in the new world research
and innovation platform created by 99X Technology.
This is an article I wrote for the 3rd quarter issue of Dotitude; the newsletter from 99X Technology to the university students.
