The holy grail of economic growth is our ability to innovate. Companies looking to come up with the next big thing would be well advised to look at how the MIT Media Lab approach the subject of innovation.
BE OPEN AND ALERT TO WHAT’S GOING ON AROUND YOU RIGHT NOW. DON’T BE A FUTURIST, BE A NOW-IST.
‘Demo or die’
The MIT Media Lab has changed the world many times over in the last thirty years. Think of innovations such as touchscreens, GPS, electronic ink (your kindle uses it) and the recent wave of wearables – and you start to get the idea.
Unlike traditional academic institutions the MIT Media Lab has always valued the quick demo over a lengthy scientific paper.
As Joi Ito, current director of the Lab, writes in a recent blog post.
“It’s through the building of things that we learn, explore, and discover. Building has a different kind of rigor than academic writing, because when you build, you have to make something that works.”
The motto ‘demo or die’ has been working wonders at the Lab for years.
Deploy
As the cost of innovation and commercialization continues to decrease, Ito has had to revise that motto to simply ‘deploy’ (the ‘die’ part of the motto, as in ‘deploy or die’ came under some criticism from PhD students and the US President…).
That is to say: Ito has realised that getting a product out of the lab and into the commercial world is the key to finding out of it will really work.
So, demo and deploy! Meaning, do quick iterations of ideas, build good prototypes and get them finalised and out on the shelves as quick as you can.
Focus on the in-betweens and the beyonds
In a recent video interview with Wired
Ito stresses that innovation the MIT Media Lab way is not about following trends, but to be looking for the in-betweens and the beyond of existing disciplines, the areas that no one else is looking in.
But how do they know where these areas are?
The clue, according to Ito, lies in the culture of the Lab,, what he calls “the DNA of the Lab”, the types of backgrounds of the people working there and what they can see and discover together.
The power of diversity
By selecting people with a wide range of experiences and qualifications, the Lab fosters a unique environment where new things can appear.
A group of people with radically different perspectives are less likely to follow the herd and are far more likely to blow up each other’s preconceptions and bulldoze new conceptual ground.
Diversity of perspectives leads you to the in-betweens and the beyonds.
Creativity, coding and hardware design
According to the MIT Media Lab’s Program Overview each applicant must be able to prove already existing creativity and a proven track record in a relevant field, as well as either coding or hardware design proficiency.
In other words, the Lab is looking for the mad-professor types, the Gyro Gearlooses of this world (a well-working cliché – think of the inventor in Back to the Future), people who are willing and able to combine a hands-on approach with a high degree of risk-willingness.
The fizzy electrified hair is probably also a requisite.
‘Be a now-ist’
In a much-viewed TED-talk from 2014, Ito talks about the bottom-up nature of innovation at the MIT Media Lab as the most fascinating, futuristic projects emerging today.
“Build quickly,” he suggests, “and improve constantly, without waiting for permission or for proof that you have the right idea. Be open and alert to what’s going on around you right now. Don’t be a futurist, be a now-ist.”
That’s the MIT Media Lab way.