usc faculty lecture 3

8/14/2019 USC Faculty Lecture 3

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Faculty Seminar on

Virtual WorldsEpisode 3 - Innovation - 2/26/08

cory ondrejka - [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]




why innovation?



why innovation in a

discussionof virtual worlds?



cause I agree with these guys



open innovation



future of work



structural holes



tertius iungens



but more importantly,

I wanted to understand whythese entrepreneurs succeeded



but, before we dive in



innovation



anybody want to define it?



like art,

we know itwhen weseeit



and we have some sensefor how it differs from



invention



innovation



improvement



I like an economic definition



per capita gdp growth



in other words,productivity



which most people want more of



although it is creativedestructionafter all



but, generally



we are all

proinnovation



so why does it happen?



so how does it happen?



so where does it happen?



lots of maps



clusters



breed theories



and correlation-causation errors



ants and picnics



but, we know a bit



innovation happens at the edges



at intersections



at collisions



(this is ron’s work)



backed by north



who tied innovation to learning



we can pay to change thedirection of innovation



but the cost of learningconstrains the rate of innovation



which brings us to

long tailsandrandom walks

ll k thi i ht?



we all know this, right?

l t il ti



long tail consumption

d th



areas under the curve

d th




d th




more or less equals

d th




more or less equals

d d lk



and random walks



what does this have to do withinnovation?



myths of innovation

b th t ?



remember the ants?

’ tt t h



we’re pattern matchers

thi



we see things

h h ld ’t



even where we shouldn’t



so we want explanations

lik hi i th i t



like hiring the innovators

lik hi i th i t s




lik hirin th innov tors



selection bias



we want

innovationto work like darts

ready aim fire



ready, aim, fire



but the evidence is otherwise

random walk



random walk



but ideas aren’t the problem



but ideas aren t the problem



it is all about connectingsolutions and problems

a personal example



a personal example

or innocentive



or innocentive

30% solution rate



30% solution rate

most only solve one problem



most only solve one problem

or the hive mind



or the hive mind



so want lots of solvers



so, want lots of solvers

but not just lots right?



but not just lots, right?



need to be

learning from each other

otherwise you just have monkeys



otherwise you just have monkeys

but if they communicate



but if they communicate



dramatic change in us

per capita growthpost IT (1995) revolution



but connecting isn’t enough

back to autos



back to autosus automakers toyota us suppliers toyota suppliers

back to autos




back to autos



collaborative exploration

shared processtrust



so, to sum up



a large, diverse set of explorerscheaply learning from each other



back to our long tail



g

think long tail innovation



g



what is the cost to try?



y

what drives this?



capital



stigma of failure



regulatory/legal challenges

how do you let everyone try?



capital



stigma



regulatory



who do explore design space



0

16.25

32.50

48.75

65.00

Web Wikipedia Sims Open SourceMainstream Media Second Life



a large,diverse

set of explorerscheaply learning from each other



multinational,

genderbalancedaudience of explorers




all kinds



of learning



remember, it is azero marginal cost world



but, more than that,avatars build trust



and cultural collisions

which we want



whether your goals are virtual



or not



because,in the experience economy



defusing one general problem



often the tension between

structures that are good atgenerating ideas



can be mitigated in the

information and experienceeconomy



if problems can be divided intoindependent pieces



virtual worlds give us theopportunity to



teach



study



explore



innovation

which matters



because innovation is exponential



whichcurve do

you want tobe on?



[email protected]://ondrejka.net

http://ondrejka.net/

http://ondrejka.net/



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