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THE SUSTAINABILITY INNOVATION |
Innovation, as an interesting article by Andrea Granelli, director of TELECOM ITALIA LAB recently observed, often follows non linear and unforeseen paths: sometimes it is born by chance, other times after a very long period of search. In other cases, it seems to be ‘sleeping’ in the inventor until somebody with a sensitivity to marketing discovers its potential for innovation. To this complexity in defining or controlling the innovation process – underlines Granelli – we add the illusion of positive growth at ‘any cost’.
Fritjof Capra, in his book The Turning Point (Simon & Schuster, New York 1982), shed lights on how much Descartes’ philosophy influenced and still influences today the western way of thinking (and acting). The preliminary element is a concept of man (and woman) as dominating nature. He proposed a vision of man as a ‘machine’ composed of pieces and the firm belief of the superiority of the rational mind over instinct. This attitude results in many paradoxes linked to innovation, for example the fact that “we are able to control the soft landing of space-vehicles on far-away planets, but we are unable to control pollutants emitted by our cars or industrial plants”.
ICT (Information & Communication Technology), says Granelli, has in some ways exploded some of the characteristics of the innovation process: a higher rate of innovation, greater difficulty in forecasting a ‘correct use’ and a major diffusion of technology in all aspects of life: education, health, leisure, work.
One of the most striking situations is the overwhelming growth of information. We have moved from the myth of “knowledge is power” to the stress of over-information. According to Granelli, “it is necessary to adopt an anthropological model of the human being in order to design sustainable innovation, the right innovation. Going back to the reflections of Capra, we should adopt a view of the world characterised by words such as organic, holistic, and ecological, in contrast with the mechanistic Cartesian conception of the world.
Finally: “the action of re-framing technology in its context should start from man and from his ‘being social’ and should use typical design methods: a multidisciplinary collection of methodologies and special techniques that could consider everything that influences the human factors in a ‘soloist manner’. Only in this way will it be possible to produce a healthy innovation.” |
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