Social Glass

History shows us that competing societies catalyze innovation, and that’s certainly one of the principal points made in the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. He points out that the rapid advancement in naval warfare technologies in Europe, for example, was a result of wars between England and France in the 1700s and 1800s. If France built a bigger cannon England must do so also or risk defeat. Competition forces societies to recognize and embrace innovation. According to wikipedia, in the 15th century, for example, the Ottoman Empire was the first to effectively adopt gunpowder and managed to conquer the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans due to its technologically superior weaponry. Coincidentally the empire was eventually overthrown due to its inability to embrace new military innovations as those in power were threatened by change and thus chose not to change at all.

Jared Diamond eventually won the Pulitzer Price for his book and his advice has been sought by corporations on how they might foster innovation. On this topic (according to strategy-business.com), Jared’s position is:

“There are obvious differences in innovation and productivity among companies (compare Microsoft with IBM), industrial belts (Silicon Valley in California versus Route 128 outside Boston), countries (Japan versus Russia), and sectors within the same country (Japan’s electronics industry versus its food industry).” The distinctions in innovation and productivity, he says, relate to “differences in the flow of ideas, centralized control, and operation of competition — just as in the contrasting histories of China and Europe.”

Microsoft brought Jared in to help them foster helpful competition. Microsoft is now organized into small, competing groups in an attempt to harness the innovation that is expected as output.

In order for innovation to fuel competition inside an organization innovation must be apparent. During the Cold War nuclear missile tests were used to showcase technological advancement on both sides. But (assuming we’re not talking about Lockhead Martin), how to organizations manifest innovation internally?

Enterprise 2.0.

When intellectual property is discoverable across the enterprise a state of comprehensive competition arises. This means knowledge workers must be able to easily document and publish their knowledge, and other knowledge workers must be able to find it.

To enhance a previous position I’ve held on Discovery and Collaboration, then, Discovery leads to Competition which leads to Innovation.  Enterprise 2.0 is key to enabling organizations to realize the benefits internal competition brings to the table.