Are we really innovative?

Franklin Johnston

Friday, January 13, 2012

WE are not adept at using innovation. We are good consumers of technology but often fail to use it to benefit production or revenue.

As early adopters of many ground-breaking innovations we fail to adapt them and offer back to the world our own added value. We are not unique in this. I am just ambitious for us. The sugar industry was a technology marvel from field to factory; sugar, alcohol, particle board animal feed, etc. Few were sustained.

We had the early car, seaplane, telegraph, electricity, telephone, railway and more. We used and abused them; never improved, and when they were unserviceable we moved on. We excelled in sugar but not as innovators; not banana, cocoa or coffee either.

Our cachet is not inventiveness, but the cursed and blessed accident which brought us to this land of the Taino. We experiment with production and processing systems, eg. in apparel and data conversion, then walk away as we do not work them or modify them to our advantage.

In consumer technologies we have also been early adopters and keen aficionados; audio, audio-visual, multi-media and sensory innovation primarily for recreation and we really "pig out" on them. We created the "sound system" — nothing patentable — but we are almost exclusively consumers of technology. Yet we use innovation with a flair and ingenuity which inspire others.

The global firms have scouts who travel with sound and video to check how products are used and modified to aid design, and Jamaica is one of the few countries on everyone's list because we have a knack at personalising standard products, be it a car or item of clothing. We are creative, but how do we leverage this intuitive design sense?

Technology may be disabling and we reap conformity, not innovation; consumers, not enterprise. We revel in being individuals; we stand out; we do not join a queue, we race past a convoy of cars because we are special, even if it costs lives.

Unemployed, we balk at a job as "dat a slavery". Our entrepreneurs are rarely original; start up and everyone copies. For us a business is a substitute for the job we cannot find. Show me an entrepreneur who has a unique idea. It's all "mek a money". This is not the mindset of innovation.

So how do we create this mindset? We nurture the child's innate curiosity at all times. Adults think their job is to drill things out of us to get us to conform. So our most feral citizens are most innovative in entertainment because they are the rebels who ducked the dead hand of adults — teachers, parents, do-gooders. Yet they innovate in little else as they lack the enabling of good formal education.

There is a balance to be struck. How do we educate from early years so as to encourage and guide the curiosity of the infant? Sound education strategies will allow us to exit the ranks of the promising nations which didn't make it and enter the winners' circle. We can do it!

The State is our main purveyor of technology and the invisible applications are more important than those which grab headlines. Consumer technologies may create "feel good" but production technologies create wealth. We must embrace new technology to build prosperity.

Technology in the State ensures accuracy, precision and sometimes dry, sterile uniformity. But are we happy to be subject to work with them? When we track core contact hours of doctors, teachers, nurses, will they accept this good metric? When public vehicles are tracked by onboard GPS, is this good? The time is done but the deliverables not there? Is the uniformity of technology threatening? Boring? Intrusive? Let's just be consumers nuh?

Micro chip, bar code, microdot, etc are useful. Zoos, cat and dog owners chip animals -- computer and transmitter on a pinhead! We lose hundreds of children, adults disappear and bodies unidentified; why not chip people? We can't catch scrap metal thieves but we have the benefit of "smart water" to coat metals with artificial DNA so sources can be checked at point of purchase.

CCTV, licence plate and facial recognition software are now basic tools of social order. They are not cheap, but if crime and anti-social behaviour threaten to derail our economy, investment, tourism, which is more costly? Mobile phones make life simple. But we still do not use them to produce. The details we give the provider and unique ID make the phone an ideal tool.

We had elections costing billions; yet 1.6 million voters could have polled with precision using their mobiles. People say we are innovative; show me! The phone firms have our talk and text details; know our friends, enemies, movements and if required by law will give them up. We could be "royally screwed" by a dictator.

The USA and UK have massive listening posts. If we had language competence we could get them to outsource to us and have thousands of jobs. The world is not private and we can't do a damn thing about it, so let's be paid to listen!

Some UK utility firms give up to eight per cent discount or one month free if you pay by direct debit or card on time. Why not here? But card firms have your data too. What you eat, wear, birthdays, travel; only the garbage man has more data — your habits, what you eat, drugs you use, etc. When we do garbage surveys for profiling we are always surprised at what comes in our gloves.

Smart meters can be delayed, not stopped. Done properly it is good. In telecoms it did wonders for the consumer who usually paid by the minute or the call. All technology is invasive. Mobiles are a traffic hazard; want to see God? — text and drive! How's your information overload and stress level? The jokes you delete unread? If you "ping" me, must I respond at once? Pressure!

E-mail connects those far away, yet distances us from our neighbours. Technology may remove the quirky things which enrich life. Is it our psyche to be 'sufferer', want cash, not work, to "beat the gate" even when the concert is free? Will technology breed a uniformly bland people who could never again produce a Bob Marley? Stay conscious, my friend!

Dr Franklin Johnston is a strategy advisor and project manager. franklinjohnstontoo@gmail.com

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COMMENTS (8)

D H
1/16/2012

Jamaicans are innovative!
Who can recall youthful years when we made toy trucks from milk boxes and bottle caps...and dolly head from mango seed.
How about during school break when your parent(s) are at work and you're outside playing with friends all day and lunchtime come....we all contribute 50 cents to buy flour and chicken back to "run a boat" and we were all under the age of 12 at the time.
I see innovation in Jamaica today...vendors, stylists in downtown Kingston....
Look good, it exists.

Noel Richards
1/13/2012

Meat Head, pointing out that JA does not innovate or invent is required. Do you know Silicon Valley? Roads won't get you innovation and invention. Going after what you call ICT is aiming for the very low end. JA needs to go for ownership of highly technical intellectual property in medicines, microchips etc. It can be done, but will only be done in cooperation with Americans, particularly. JA needs a plentiful, ubiquitous and cheap supply of power. Without it, they won't even consider coming.

Stephen Fox
1/13/2012

Jamaica is not yet structurally evolved to foster innovation on a wide scale. We have yet to overcome our colonial past on an economic level. The descendents of slaves, who are the majority, are yet to overcome the equity deficit that is their heritage. The divestment of government controlled land and land titles will produce more backrooms, barns, and garages. Then Jamaica will see innovation the likes of which has never been produced before. History and economics concur.

Meat Head
1/13/2012

As @Stephen Fox hinted, criticizing JA on innovation is reflective of ignorance of what it takes to succeed. Since very little was done over the past 50 years, we need to spend the next decade concentrating on education, infrastructure improvements, etc., to lay the groundwork. Our goal should be that within the coming decade, we will become a world-class player in information services, one of the few industries available to us.

Beresford Davidson
1/13/2012

The freedom of not wanting to innovate or invent is a Jamaican privilege and virtue but that doesn't mean they cannot; as a matter of fact they can turn around real quick and change the world. A US ambassador wondered out aloud why we cannot swim? I return the favor by saying we pride ourselves in not caring to swim because we have enough clear Christal ocean waters forever to look at without getting wet and that's fun. Later we go out in the deep and catch plenty doctor fish for the big pot.

Stephen Fox
1/13/2012

Why so quick to criticise Jamaicans and spout technobabble without offering workable solutions? Lets delve deeper into what innovation really is and what is needed to foster it. Firstly innovation is produced by people who recognize a problem and have the time and space to invent a solution. People who struggle to put food on their plate have little time to innovate. We cannot legislate innovation but we can legislate the environment to produce it. Back rooms, garages, campuses, R&D companies?

Noel Richards
1/13/2012

J'cans are being fed the idea that they should hitch their caboose to the BRIC engine. That will be a fatal decision, most inventions and innovations come from the US. Establish strong municipal, chambers of commerce and individual business and University ties with American citizens in all States. It's what J'cans don't know about the system that hurts them, and believe me, there's a lot that needs to be revealed. Those in charge in JA are as blind as those they treat like lemmings.

Noel Richards
1/13/2012

I agree with you that J'cans are not innovative, much less inventive. Individually rebellious, yes. Praising oneself for using a computer, Facebook, Twitter, cell phone, without having participated in any way in its inception or development makes JA a shopkeeper economy. The plans I hear from the J'can pols haven't a Kisko Pop's chance in hell of working.
The listening posts in the UK (Menwith Hill), as in Australia etc, are a part of the US' NSA (Ft. Mead. MD) and are not up for outsourcing.

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GCT to go down, white rum prices going up

Are we really innovative?