Innovation: Our Change Agent
Witnessing the instances of innovation taking place to battle the COVID-19 crisis has been inspiring and heart-warming. People and companies are moving beyond their usual roles and standard processes to fill voids and make a difference.
Innovation is forward-looking and characterized by curiosity, faith in possibility, and a drive to elevate capacity through creativity and improvisation. Through innovation, we challenge conventional ways doing things, bring new ideas, and imagination to add value to a product or service. The driving elements are purpose and focus, which lead to execution and ultimately a better user experience.
The Arts: Vehicles of Innovation
In our last post, Supporting Jazz and the Arts in Crisis: A Manifesto, Greg laid out the deep human needs that the arts fulfill—enabling us to express, feel, reflect, and create. Artists, through constant observation and discernment, make the unique connections that allow them to innovate through their art.
Jazz is a landscape of innovation where musicians forge connections and develop the interdependence to meaningfully contribute to group high performance, which we call ensemble mindset. The band is an ecosystem of support, trust and challenge through which innovation advances remarkable musical performance. Innovation is central to jazz performance and is a natural manifestation of the music’s culture.
Alvin Ailey dancers in the final moment of “I Been ‘Buked”
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater recently ended its tour and its dancers went home. With no performances in the foreseeable future, dancer Danica Paulos asked fellow dancers to create an online experiment. Ensemble member Miranda Quinn came up with the framework for the video when the opening scene of "The Brady Brunch" popped into her head:
How they're all in little squares, she said. That made me think of how we're all being quarantined and are supposed to stay separate, but this was a way for all of us to still be dancing together and creating together even though we're apart.
The video re-purposes “I Been ‘Buked” from Ailey’s iconic Revelations. From their separate apartments, each dancer performs a choreographed segment. They were apart yet moving and connecting as if they were on the same stage. An innovation in dance, an online invention and intervention to meet our perilous moment.
Business: Innovating in Crisis
Out of necessity, businesses are innovating. To fight this escalating crisis, they also understand that radical reinvention is needed. This is not a time for petty competition. What will pull us through this daunting time is collective innovation. Take the example of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal collaborating to write a full-page joint letter to China. While acknowledging that they are all rivals, the editors were of one voice, urging China to allow their journalists to remain in China and gather critical information to fight this pandemic.
More and more companies have stepped into innovation mode, re-purposing their production capacities to deliver much-needed products like masks and ventilators. And the innovation continues in even more creative ways:
Participants of Akimbo’s virtual co-working
Akimbo, the online platform created by author and entrepreneur Seth Godin, has launched a virtual coworking space for people who would rather not work alone. Through Zoom video chat rooms, you can work quietly beside others or engage in community discussion boards and live conversations. The platform is available 24/7 and open until April 18th.
The Open Source COVID19 Medical Supplies community was started on Facebook and attracted participation by over 300 engineers, medical professionals and researchers to design and build an open source ventilator. Using 3D printed parts and readily available materials, the ventilator was created in seven days.
The MASIE Center, the Learning CONSORTIUM, and several learning partners have organized a collaboration called The Learning & Coronavirus Update Project. They’re hosting webinars on content, context and collaboration for leaders in eLearning, and an app with updates and perspectives of learning, HR, and performance workplace colleagues. The app currently has more than 700 members sharing resources, postings, and learning activities. We’ve participated and have come away with some great information and insights.
Health care workers around the nation have called, relentlessly, for masks and other protective equipment. Two California residents, designer Rachel Smith and tech-company founder Chad Loder, formed Masks for Docs, to respond to that call and gather personal protective equipment. Ryan Snelson, a New Yorker and long-time motorcycle enthusiast, was inspired by a tweet about Masks for Docs and decided to rally his follow cyclists to pick up protective equipment from donors to deliver directly to doctors.
Innovation is crucial to our progress. The examples above demonstrate how unique connections or envisioning possibility brings solutions in times of need.
Innovation thrives in a culture that values every member. The opening image of this post is of iconic jazz master Count Basie, whose quote “Real innovators do their innovating by just being themselves” illustrates what we are seeing—people rising to confront this crisis and innovating to make a difference.
