Innovation Is About New Tech (Not Really)

My grandmother doesn’t like to use synthetic fertilizers.
She believes that the vegetables are not that delicious after.
And there is an argument every year.

My dad and uncle want the fertilizer. She doesn’t.
Their argument: it’s easier when using synthetic fertilizers.

All her life my grandmother always had a vegetable garden.
My dad and uncle grew up and live in the city.

Every visit they will bring a new tool or a chemical that should help her with the garden and make her life easier.

She promises that she will use it.
Later they will find their new tools in the shed. Unpacked.
And the bickering starts.

We think of new tech as the future. So it’s easy to believe that innovation is all about creating new and better tech.

But that’s not always the case.

Innovation can also be about finding new and better ways to use existing tech. Or even about developing non-tech solutions to problems.

My grandmother’s family needed to adapt to solve their scarce resource problem.

So they learn how to take care of the land so it takes care of them.

Without prior knowledge.
With the most basic tool.
And a lot of experiments.

This was innovation without new tech.
They found new ways to use existing tech to meet their needs.

Believing innovation only needs new tech limits thinking.
We miss opportunities by focusing only on new tech.
Existing tech and non-tech solutions offer innovation too.

Sometimes you need to send an email or a piece of rock to solve a problem in a new way.

Focus on finding better solutions, not new technologies.
Be open to all solutions, tech or not.

To find new and innovative solutions to problems, we need to be creative and first principles thinking. We need to be willing to challenge the status quo and experiment with new ideas.

Break down the problem into its fundamental elements.

• Question your assumptions.
• Brainstorm new solutions.
• Evaluate the potential solutions.
• Experiment with solutions.

Tech-only innovation is a narrow view of innovation.
Focusing on the problem not so much on the tech we want to use opens us to innovation and overall better outcomes.

Innovation does not always need synthetic fertilizers.
First, you have to be willing to experiment with the basics.