Two books that have broadened my insight into ideas of change and innovations are How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson and We Do Things Differently by Mark Stevenson. They brought back memories of my fascination with science and change in my twenties, when I was captivated by a BBC documentary series entitled Connections. Narrated by James Burke, it and its two sequels are available on the library website Internet Archive. It is well worth watching even though over four decades old.

With humour and a style of edutainment, Burke shows how one technological innovation is linked to another in the most unlikely and unplanned manner, often even unknowing of its significance in the future. Quoting Wikipedia, 

Similarly, Johnson contends In How We Got to Now that what future historian sees of our past as significant may be very different from our assessments. Johnson’s list of life-changing innovations include artificial lighting, easily accessible clean drinking water, and air conditioning. Another is how the drive to enhance and reproduce the human voice paved the way for social and technological breakthroughs in communications, computation, politics, and the arts, primarily in the late 19th century. Johnson stresses the importance of “symbiotic co-evolution” as exemplified by how the printing press and demand for spectacles aided the invention of the microscope and discovery of cells. The links and influences are direct and intelligible. One innovation triggers changes in a different domain that produces unexpected orders-of-magnitude increases (e.g. Internet.) 

Two key points Johnson makes are that social transformations are not always the direct result of human agency and decision-making; ideas and innovations engender changes not part of the creators’ vision. Furthermore, the imagination of the genius works at the margins or intersection points between very different disciplines, borrowing metaphors to see beyond surface appearances of things. This overcome disciplinary boundaries that serve as blinders. “Hackers, tinkerers, and makers” who have hobbies are able to mix and converge different intellectual fields, crossing these divides literally, geographically, or conceptually. 

In We Do Things Differently, author Stevenson comments on the resistance that hampers change. “Denial is a common and understandable reaction, from psychological and economic perspectives. System justification theory holds that everyone wants to think well of themselves and the social order in which they live their lives. Any proposal to change would be a challenge to the status quo.” Stevenson argues that most current medical research are motivated by reputations or profits. Hence, “If you want to see real innovation, go to the places where things are most broken. The most affected will offer the most desperate innovations.” 

So aside from marveling at how innovative some people can be (e.g. Stevenson’s description of an Indian scientist who utilized the concept of the dabbawala system (Mumbai’s 5000 self-employed bicycle-riding deliverers of 200,000 home-lunches using a simple alpha-numeric code) as a simulation model of the TB cell metabolic pathway to generate ideas of possible drugs against multi-drug resistant TB), what else can we do or emulate to be participants of change? 

Begin by reading broadly to increase one’s imagination and reveling in the world of metaphors and analogies. It may spur serendipitous insights and discoveries. I have found this particularly helpful in relating spiritual concepts with literary and scientific analogies. 

On a wider social or global scale, “daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be defeated, but they start a winning game (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe).” Read about people who were told they were crazy in what they imagined to engage in technological improvements for social justice that could not be done, but they did it anyway. Stevenson challenges us to fight against the inertia of status quo. “The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed (William Gibson).” Be informed to join in the conversations of which and when disruptive innovations are distributed to support development of a more compassionate, equitable and sustainable society.