Waxing Poetic About Innovation: Where De Man Wit De Hammer Gone?

December 12, 2009 by Taran Rampersad

I apologize in advance for what is a very long post, but I found it necessary in writing it and could  not find a reasonable way to break it into smaller pieces. Hopefully it isn't too burdensome to read.

When I read that Trinidad and Tobago ranked low in global innovation, I wasn't too surprised. And since, in some circles, I am considered an innovator because of one thing I was involved in some years ago... I have to write something about it. Innovation is closer to my heart than just about anything - or anyone.

When you speak of innovation (as I have been asked to here and there), it's easy to get caught up in abstract concepts framed by our own experiences. So let us start with the etymology of the word innovate - which was derived from the Latin innovatus, whose root is innovare. Literally translated,  it means 'into new'.

Renew. Change. That's what 'innovate' means. But when most people speak of innovation, they immediately start thinking of silicon-based life enhancements. That's wrong.

Innovation is greater than technology. Innovation is a mindset. Innovation is what keeps innovators up at night. It makes us disgruntled. It makes us unhappy. It can make us euphoric. It can make us extremely happy. As Nikola Tesla put it:

"I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything."

In my life I have forgotten food, sleep, friends, love and everything. What do I have to show for it? Here, I can show you one article that talks about a project that failed to meet its objectives. But that's not all the innovation I have done - and truth be told, its not the one I'm most proud of.

The one I am most proud of is a single function in a piece of (proprietary) software. That one line took 74 different pieces of information and did something completely awesome. It did it in 8 lines, it did it perfectly, and it did it faster than anything that attempted to do it before. I can't tell you about it. There's a non-disclosure agreement, a copyright and a non-compete clause that won't expire for another few years. They won't even let me have visitation rights to my child. Bastards.

But to give you something to look at, you can stare at my front bumper. I didn't weld it, but its my idea. And really, I have to innovate the winch onto it still.

And that leads into discussing what is required to innovate. There are certain key aspects to innovation, as I see it. A person must have an education. Their education must not have broken them. There must be a culture of change. They must have the tools and materials. They must have time and energy (thus, basic needs must be met). And most of all, they need two questions: "What if", and, "Why not?"

So, what's wrong with Trinidad and Tobago? Why is it considered so low in innovation? I can't tell you how they did their study to compare different countries - but I can tell you where I think the flaws are.

A Culture of Change

A culture of change is not one mired in bureaucracy. Bureaucracy itself is designed to resist change. Trinidad and Tobago society, for the most part, is mired in bureaucracy - and much innovation is actually done to bypass bureaucracy. The popular ones to speak of are corruption and non-violent crime - and while these things are not ones that I would like to present as innovation, the spirit of innovation often is found at the core of them - taking a system and making it workable.

In this way, Trinbagonians waste a lot of time innovating against bureaucracy. It's the same world round, but having traveled a fair portion of the world I can say that Trinidad and Tobago bureaucracy is more resistant to change than most other countries I have been to. The adherence to bureaucracy could be traced back to colonial roots - but those colonial roots are left far behind.

But that isn't all that a culture of change - a culture of innovation - needs. The steel pan came from innovation.

Free culture. Creative Commons. Open Source. And stores you can walk through instead of stores that treat you like a criminal by default.

Tools and Materials

One of the things I have always liked doing is walking through places like Home Depot and Best Buy in the United States. It isn't that I wanted to buy anything. It's that I wanted to see what was available so that, should the need arise, I could go to the right place to get the right things.

Somewhere in the past, some Trinbagonians found that hitting a steel drum in different ways gave different results. And they took the tools available - hammers, oil drums - and made the steel pan. The steel pan gave us the steel band. And the steel band persists to this day.

David Rudder asked 'Where de man wit de hammer gone?'. Imagine, if you could, a T&T without a hammer in the past. No steel pan. No steel drum. Before the steel pan, no one knew that some innovators would take a hammer and drum and do something so creative with it. Having the tools and materials was extremely important.

And now, in present Trinidad and Tobago, we seek to innovate. Yet most of the tools and materials remain hidden at stores because of crime. Burglar proofing mires the ability to see what is available in many places - and aside from blocking some criminals, it also blocks ideas. Therefore, crime is a problem when it comes to innovation.

For those of you wondering why DanSteel/Bhagwansingh hardwares do so well - it's because they have much where it can be seen. While this does not mean all their customers are innovating, it means that there is greater potential for innovation. And even with Dansteel and Bhagwansingh being as open as they are, they hide much of their materials in the back where it is out of eyesight of would-be innovators.

Electronics? The same problem. Software? Because of piracy of proprietary software and the dependency on proprietary software, much potential innovation is locked away. This is where the Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society allows for more innovation - by distributing Free Software (GPL) and Open Source software. Slowly, the inertia is changing.

Access to technology is a requirement for technological innovation.

Even so, we must constantly revisit Rudders question: Where did the man with the hammer go?

Education

I'm going to make a few people a little upset here, but those few people don't really matter anyway. In essence, if this part upsets you then you're part of the problem - not the solution. Maybe I'll be invited less often to academic events, but again - if that is so, I wouldn't have wanted to go anyway.

People in modern society measure their education with letters behind their name. This is a quick and dirty metric for measuring education - and we shouldn't be surprised that it gives a quick and dirty perspective of someone's education. I have met people who didn't complete secondary school who innovate, who made things anew. And, on the flip side, I have met people with Ivy League educations who also innovate. The letters behind the name are meaningless, they only serve to distract. Granted, I am mainly an autodidact - but the idea that education can be ascertained by academic accomplishments alone rings false to anyone who has an education and is continuing it - formally or otherwise.

The only good education one can get formally, as far as I am concerned, is one that teaches one how to think. And the worlds overburdened and overadministrated educational systems forgot the German University professors having the time to discuss ideas and thoughts outside of the curriculum to students. Most of the time I spent in formal education was spent on interesting stuff so far off the curriculum that professional teachers balked. Good teachers, on the other hand, knew what I needed to know.

Innovation requires constant education. Innovation is a hungry mistress. And education outside the hallowed walls of those-that-produce-alphabet-soup is considered extracurricular, except you don't get to join a club. And extracurricular is where innovation lies. Why?

Because to make or discover a new way of doing things one needs to get off the beaten path. By definition, that is exactly what one must do. It's miserable off the beaten path at times. At other times, it's nirvana. A lot of people can't do it - and that's why innovators are almost always looked up to. They did something that no one else did. But when they were doing it, the established systems typically made them walk over intellectual coals.

This is not to say that the formal education system should be shunned - on the contrary, I say get your knowledge wherever you can get it. Just don't measure your education by letters, grade point averages and little smiley faces or stars. Play the game if you must, but know that it is only a game.

Your only real measure of your education is its depth (critical thinking) and breadth (lateral thinking) and your ability to apply all of it in all aspects of your life as well as connect it all in new and interesting ways. And the latter requires you to ask two questions often left behind in Kindergarten: "What if?", and, "Why not?"

Basic Needs Met

The ongoing joke in Trinidad and Tobago, funded to skew unemployment figures more than to increase the standard of living, are CEPEP and URP projects. Basically, we pay people to cut grass in an inefficient manner so that we don't seem to have a high unemployment. This is coated in a paint of 'offering jobs to the disenfranchised' and has been sold to the general public. And, in keeping people busy and employed, it works - but it doesn't actually increase the standard of living. It makes many Trinbagonians dependent on a welfare state - and that serves politicians who want votes so that they can get into or stay in power. I won't write of the corruption in these projects but with this sentence I acknowledge them.

In this way, basic needs are allegedly met. And yet there are many who are not having their needs met. Basic requirements in the modern world are shelter, safety, electricity, water, telecommunications and internet access. Trinidad and Tobago doesn't meet these needs as well as it could as even the most cranially dense politician must acknowledge.

[Pause for a moment. Imagine CEPEP and URP workers being required to take classes to increase their knowledge - be it underwater basketweaving or nuclear science. That's a part of education.]

Time and Energy

 When basic needs are met, people have more time and energy to improve other things. When basic needs are met by depleting time and energy through bureaucracy and 'busy work', there is more time to look at how things are and improve upon them: innovation.

Funding 

The last time I spoke in public about innovation, I was 'debating' someone who said that 'innovation in Trinidad and Tobago needs more funding'. On the surface, that is true. Beneath the mask, it's false.The steel pan project didn't require funding when it was first being innovated. Funding, as it is, comes afterward if it is even necessary. Often, an entrepeneurial spirit can take innovation and make it pay for itself if the innovation is beneficial enough.

Building areas where innovation can take place is foolish. It demonstrates a bureaucratic mindset attempting to create a bureaucracy that will permit innovation. By definition, a bureaucracy cannot innovate: it is created to assure certain results through certain inputs.

Why Trinidad and Tobago ranks low when it comes to global innovation

Freedom is a necessity for innovation. The ability to walk off the beaten path and come up with new ways of doing things is the very core of innovation. The ability to find and use tools and materials is a form of freedom as well.

Most Trinbagonians don't have that freedom. And, sadly, they don't know what they're missing. Neither do the bureaucrats trying to manufacture innovation.

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