…I Probably Stole What if I told you ALL progress, from now on, relies on ? And that all innovation appropriation. And that are all thieves…and have no choice in the matter. It’s because of . theft is we The Collision Theory of Innovation <a href="https://medium.com/media/04767291c370141cf1117a35faf60bd9/href">https://medium.com/media/04767291c370141cf1117a35faf60bd9/href</a> (The Collision Theory is the first “I” in the ‘3I’s of Inevitability’ formula I laid out in this episode of The McFuture podcast .) IDEAS All progress starts with an idea. Back in our cave days, almost was TERRIBLE. every idea “Why did Jeremiah get the plague?” “The witch did it!” “Let’s burn the witch!” “How do we defeat all these Mongolians?” “We must summon the ghosts of our elders with this special dance…” “How do we get our crops to grow?” “Sacrifice this virgin!” The only time this made sense was when the virgin was the witch. At least then, you could cut the death toll in half. any also It wasn’t their fault. Primitive minds have malnourished imaginations. They subsist on fear, ignorance and superstition. Today, we take for granted how fast bad ideas get snuffed out — by grade school science or a delightful Twitter mob. Knowledge tames the wildness of our ideas but deepens their quality. All our virgins get to live. But it’s no longer science driving us forward, it’s COLLISIONS. Innovation happens when two or more unrelated ideas collide to create something new. The best collisions can change lives, eliminate drudgery or simply delight. Innovation demands both quality and quantity of collisions. is driven by knowledge, diversity, intelligence, creativity, industriousness, stimulus, and criticism. Quality is all about frequency and volume. The more people in a physical space, the more interactions, the more time spent communicating, the more stimulus, the more collisions. Quantity Sure, a few hermits can spin magic under a willow tree, listening to frogs croak. But for society to benefit, their ideas must reach others, be swapped, debated and butchered — to come up with better ones — or get people to act on them. We’ve raised our collision game, big time. Ships, trains, planes and cars brought us to new worlds. They boosted the frequency and quality of collisions. And cities packed us on subways, close enough to name each other’s breakfast, but also into offices where we collide with lots of smart people. But the greatest leaps didn’t require moving people at all, just the ideas themselves. Radio, telegraph, telephones and TV created collisions at an unimaginable speed and scale. They freed collisions from physical constraints. Then came the internet. The internet is an . It made collisions exponential. The web is the world’s biggest brainstorming session…that never sleeps. It’s where no idea stays precious for long. idea supercollider — Steve Faktor “The internet is an idea supercollider. The web is the world’s biggest brainstorming session…that never sleeps. It’s where no idea stays precious for long.” Not only did we upload our entire body of work — all of our inventions, books, scientific discoveries, fantasies, but we unlocked infinite possibilities. YouTube, alone, is a massive driver of innovation. It’s this crazy archive of everything that’s possible. When someone ambitious sees a great skateboarding or cooking trick. Not only are they going to copy it, but they’re going try to top it. They’re adding bacon. Or, jumping down flights of stairs…while holding a cat and chimp under each arm. Then, they’ll post how they did it. That third guy? He’s setting those stairs on fire. (Don’t do this, kids.) four This cycle is helping us unlock infinity for human potential…give or take an occasional, smoky chimp. So what happens when the number of collisions nears infinity? We’ll start to see more of two remarkable phenomena. PARALLELS I love comedy. But from time to time, comedians like , and are accused of joke theft. A few, like and are blatant, but unless it’s habitual, even identical-sounding jokes are not likely to be products of theft. At least not as we know it, aka “Theft ”. Amy Schumer Robin Williams Conan O’Brien Carlos Mencia Denis Leary Classic Imagine there are two comedians. One from New York, the other, LA. Both are single, quirky and work late at night. They’re constantly traveling, having road flings, and eating mid-to-bottom ramen. Both consume similar blogs, podcasts and HBO shows. And their circle of friends is maybe one degree apart. Is it that hard to imagine both coming up with similar premises? Or, even an identical joke? Or, someone else, with a similar lifestyle, doing it eventually? This concept is called and it’s intensifying daily, inside our supercollider. parallel thinking The same goes for innovation. When parallel thinking leads to something useful, it’s called . multiple discovery I have dozens of ideas each week — for new businesses, articles and things to do with cauliflower. (I’m on a low carb diet, don’t ask…) I have way more ideas than I could ever use. But I hoard them in an encrypted file on my phone. I recently went through it and realized One by one, my ideas are being pilfered by filthy thieves!! everyone’s ripping me off! Perfect example is Pillpack. It creates packets of your prescriptions and vitamins to tear off each customized dose off a perforated roll (like toilet paper). It was bought for a BILLION dollars by Amazon. How dare they steal my idea?!? Don’t they know that in eight to 48 years, I would’ve gotten around building it into a TRILLION-dollar business! I demand restitution! The reason I’m not holding my breath is multiple discovery, which has been a staple of Western civilization. And it’s nearing overdrive. Go back to even the most primitive cultures. They all had decorative masks, totem poles and meat on a stick. And independently, Egyptians and Mayans both built pyramids. Though Egyptians wore it better. All of these things, cobbled together from a of accumulated knowledge. thimbleful Who came up with electricity? Edison or Tesla? If Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project didn’t create the atomic bomb, do you think we wouldn’t have atomic bombs? Russia and Germany weren’t far behind — and dying by the tens of thousands each week. Just when you thought your boss gives you crazy deadlines…? And rock and roll didn’t start with Elvis, Chuck Berry or the Beatles. It was a progression from influences, dating back to Africa. Same goes for the iPhone. Okay, not exactly back to Africa, but it spawned from collisions of existing technologies — telephony, cellular, batteries, computing, plastics, data compression and many more. Predecessors like Palm and blackberry weren’t different. that Consider Elon Musk’s Hyperloop, is a remarkable invention that shoots people through an underground tube at blazing speeds, hoping they don’t come out as soup at the other end. But it looks eerily like the patented and built under NYC in the 1860’s. Pneumatic Subway Recently, AOL co-founder Steve Case his eulogy to , creator of the first word processor: tweeted Evelyn Berezin <a href="https://medium.com/media/1f7da1c661b91e045532ed8556c7f75d/href">https://medium.com/media/1f7da1c661b91e045532ed8556c7f75d/href</a> No Bill Gates? No Steve Jobs? No internet? No word processors? No spreadsheets? As pivotal as she was, is that really true? Or, would we still have all those things, just differently, with a different cast of characters? That’s the point. Oppenheimer, Tesla, Steve Jobs, Elvis and Musk — they’re not conjurers, they’re . First to the finish line, but far from the only ones in the race who could win. conduits As time goes on, collisions multiply. Parallel thinking and multiple discovery escalate. That more and more ‘conductors’ will qualify to build our future. That’s because every invention imaginable is incubating in this infinite global soup. And no matter what patent law says, owns any of them. And never has. Every idea, every invention is the offspring of everything that came before it — the collective of human knowledge. Everything — and is both a product and an ingredient. guarantees nobody everyone That’s’ why I’m comfortable saying that predicting the future has gotten . In fact, this piece was just the first “i” in the ‘ formula I created to help predict the future. Not just the future, but . Listen to whole story on the ‘ ’ episode of . easier 3I’s of Inevitability ’ you the inevitable Why Even Musk Can’t Trump The Inevitable The McFuture podcast (If you enjoy it, don’t forget to subscribe and share.) Until next time, enjoy your ride to the limits of human imagination, you beautiful thief. <a href="https://medium.com/media/04767291c370141cf1117a35faf60bd9/href">https://medium.com/media/04767291c370141cf1117a35faf60bd9/href</a> If you enjoyed this, please share. Follow me via newsletter , The McFuture Podcast , LinkedIn , Facebook & Twitter . About Steve Faktor is CEO of innovation incubator, former head of the American Express Chairman’s Innovation Fund and futurist author of Econovation. He’s a popular contributor to Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and Business Insider, as well as a LinkedIn Influencer. This season on The McFuture podcast, will feature provocative, irreverent monologues on the keys to success in our virtualized future. IdeaFaktory

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The Collision Theory of Innovation

The Collision Theory of Innovation

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