Part I: Glossary of innovation … and not

Many thanks to Landon Kuester, the editor, and to the anonymous reviewer. Boundless gratitude to all showcasing a smile on their face while reading this glossary and/or providing me with memorable feedforward. In chronological order, it’s only fair: Christine Moser, Dirk Deichmann, Ineke Sluiter, Frank den Hond, Mike Zundel, Harry Wels, Sierk Ybema, Henk Nies, Dick de Gilder, Kees Boersma, Kathleen Stephenson, Myriam Bechtold, Bianca Beersma, Julia de Jonge, Yentl Dudink, Sarah Kamphuis, Maud Merriënboer, Bas Becker, Sarah van Duijn, Jasmien Khattab, Graham Cross, Stephen Lile, Shahzad Ansari, Claire McKenzie, Timon Beyes, Christina Juhlin, Baukje Cnossen, Felippe Symmes and Elles Bandringa. To all, I forgot.This tale first arose out of the question: what does innovation mean? Don’t let this question fool you: there is hardly one answer. Perhaps this story will begin with only – neither more, nor less – ONE: a puzzling great deal is what the word innovation means. *Good stories often begin on a gusty and blustery day and – not to forget – with a bullet. Right next to it – of course – we now notice the smoking gun, which probably fired it. But how will this end? Most narrators know that for both the ending and the beginning to be useful, both termini of the tale function at their very best when kept inconclusive, mysterious and even opaque. It is certainly one of the classic and most captivating storytelling tactics out there. As Julian Barnes writes in The man with the red coat, “that usually works: a sturdy rule of theatre declares that if you show a gun in the first act, it will assuredly be fired in the last. But which gun, and which bullet? [2] *What does innovation mean? Was the first question, asked in the first meeting, on the very first day of what would become seven months of ethnographic fieldwork, at River State Hospital. According to Ralph, head of the hospital’s innovation department called The Learning House, innovation was “essential—an opportunity that could not be missed out on”. Emphatic gestures and a Kandinsky-meets-Malevich like sketch on the whiteboard with arrows and circles provided scaffolding for a plea of 40 minutes in which he unfolded all that innovation represented to him. After expounding on his views regarding the importance of innovation for, and its impact on, society and healthcare, he arrived at his conclusion: innovation is the hospital’s ultimate tool “to reach the top”. The alternative was unattractive, because “[t]o stand still is to regress!” [3]. *At 15:45 (GMT) on 16 November 2021, a flying vehicle called “Spirit of Innovation” breaks all speed records and becomes the fastest electric vehicle known to mankind. The aircraft reached a top speed of 555 9 km/h (345.4 mph) over 3 kilometres. Its manufacturer Rolls Royce proudly announces the freshly set world record. The CEO declares: “The advanced battery and propulsion technology developed for this programme has exciting applications for the Advanced Air Mobility market, following the world’s focus on the need for action at COP26”. The business secretary states: “Rolls-Royce’s revolutionary Spirit of Innovation aircraft is yet more proof of the UK’s enviable credentials when it comes to innovation. […] The government is proud to back projects like this to leverage the private investment necessary to unlock cleaner, greener aircraft which will allow people to fly as they do now, but in a way that cuts emissions”. The electric vehicle, presented as a steppingstone to a greener future in aircraft mobility, comes with the following statistics: The battery has 6,480 cells, which is enough power to charge 7,500 phones; a 2200 rpm propeller rotation twice as fast as a washing machine and the motor power of 400 kW, which is equivalent of a 535 BHP supercar [4]. *The answer “a puzzling great deal” did not appear out of thin air. The ideas that are discussed in this tale have been with me for a long time. Serendipity struck, once in a waxing and waning moon, many years ago when I unwittingly stumbled upon the word innovation and the many things associated with this word. This strike of epiphany took place in a hospital. Much to my own surprise, I was hit with “a special proclivity for accidental sagacity”, as Merton and Barber brightly quip in The travels and adventures of serendipity [5]. Right there and then, I was drawn into innovation’s absorption into our lexicon. The twists and turns put on this ONE teeny-tiny little word – blessed and cursed with a sky-blazing set of crystal, close to mercurial, feet. Traversing from savvy new inventions, to originality, to creativity, to product development, to clever design, the word innovation – so light-footed and effortlessly – tiptoes on a long tightrope of language signification. We make the word innovation mean everything, and anything, all the way down to nothing – the latter all at once – and then we wrap it with a baby blue, softly silken ribbon on it. We all think we know – right in the precipice of our instincts – what it means, from our own experience. *Originating from the word kainotomia – a compound of kainos which means new, and of temnein which means to cut – innovation is of Greek provenance. It first manifested itself as a political term used to challenge the established order or as a play on traditions [6]. Around the 3rd and 4th centuries, innovation entered Latin vocabulary and attained religious underpinnings. Innovation (innovo) referred to the renewing of the “spirit” and return to the origins or the “pure” soul. Entering everyday vocabulary in the 17th century, innovation implied rebellion and acted as a plea for the reformation. Punishment for the pledge of innovation, which at the time was considered as heresy, was to crop off the heretic’s ears. *The word “laggard” is a compound of lag (probably North Germanic origin, meaning late) and ard (From Frankish, meaning hardy and bold). In animal husbandry, laggard means not growing as quickly as the rest of the flock or herd. The laggard broilers are euthanised and incinerated. *Henry Burton, an English Clerk of the Closet, serving under Prince Charles in the mid-1620s, produced a pamphlet called “For God and the King”. Accusing several bishops of popery and warning against the great dangers of “innovations tending to reduce us to that Religion of Rome”, Burton invoked the King Majesty to stop “the course of all innovators”. Eventually, Burton’s opponents answered to his accusation, claiming that his anti-innovation manifesto was, in fact, an innovation in and of itself. Receiving a tragic dose of his own medicine, innovator Burton indeed had his ears cropped off and was sentenced to prison [7]. *A poem called “Gnome” [8] – a derivate from the ancient Greek word “gnosis” meaning “knowledge” – fashioned me to express my wonders in summary and rhyme: *The expression “the answer is always in the question” suggests that a solution to a problem, or the key to understanding a topic of interest, can be found within the question itself. The question “Why are you not married?” – regardless of the answer – locates the main subject (marriage), reveals the subject as the norm (to be married) and the deviation of this norm (not to be married). The same logic applies when put in reverse (why are you married?). Another example: you press the immutable importance of context and ask the question: “Would you leave the room if it was on fire?” *In a book called Mythologies, Roland Barthes gives advice to his readers: “[I]t is a good thing if a spectacle is created to make the world more explicit” [9]. My proposition is that the innovation tale contains seven archetypical dimensions. By the means of a working reconstruction, and as sharp, succinct and, “spectacular” as myth permits:Myths always start off with an event in which an opportunity arises. An omen for fair weather, a rainbow of sorts, presents itself and unlocks an opportunity to relish the unknown. This element of the story is underwritten with representation of youth, beginning of birth and (1) novelty. The vision of the unknown suddenly appears to trump the status quo. What is old becomes dreaded and fades to the hinterlands of the freshly discovered, better and (2) desirable revelation. There is an unquestioned belief, perceived as an (3) objective truth, that a journey needs to be completed for a higher purpose. There is a responsibility to the old world to enter into the new realm and bring back enlightenment. The revelation comes with hope and foresight: the future (4) prospect of attaining an ultimate boon. This prophesy of enlightenment and reward invokes a quest and action is (5) performed. All resources of fancy are called forth in conceiving the object of appeal. The proverbial pot of gold is not examined from various viewpoints but seen as designating the final destination of the sequential and predestined journey assigned to an (6) individual, who is responsible for seizing the reward. The propelled protagonist, or entrepreneur, experiences different successions and destructive or painful ordeals during the stepwise and (7) linear road of trails that will eventually lead the hero to the end. The hero returns from the faraway land diffuses the boon that metamorphoses the previous conditions of lack into ones of fulfilment. The dust settles, and all is well again. *In Irish folklore, pots of gold at the end of the rainbow are never found. The end of the rainbow is a place that cannot be reached; when walking towards it, it will appear to move further away because the end of the arc is an optical illusion. Call it common sense, the rainbow is a closed circle. *There is little originality in using the rainbow as a metaphorical weapon to make a point. The symbolic power of the rainbow tale lies in its familiarity; it lies in its custom. In a book called, Scepticism and Animal Faith, George Santayana galvanises the symbolic powers of the rainbow: “When their attention is attracted to some remarkable thing, say to a rainbow, this thing is not analysed nor examined from various points of view, but all the casual resources of the fancy are called forth in conceiving it, and this total reaction of the mind precipitates dogma: the rainbow is taken for an omen of fair weather, or for a trace left in the sky by the passage of some beautiful elusive goddess. Such a dogma, far from being an interpenetration, or identification of thought with the truth of an object, is a fresh additional object” [10]. *Assigned to steer and integrate ongoing innovation initiatives, a paediatrician expressed his concern about the madding motley of accumulating innovation initiatives in the hospital:“It seems like we are living in times of Rococo. After the Baroque we just wanted more and more: the acceleration of everything. Similar to recent times, manifold adjustments and embellishments are added up incessantly. This profusion clouds our sight. One just can’t see the wood for the trees anymore. Soon there will be a period of destruction. After, time and again, only wanting more and more, this will overturn to a period of austerity”. *Known for being an art style without any rules; what is new quickly becomes old. And in art, this applies a bit more than usual with Rococo. Known for being exuberantly ornamental and theatrical, it nourished a decorative style that vowed for the principle “more is more”. It permitted a breath of fresh air, a relaxation of strict hierarchical structures, a moment of gaiety and pleasure and a chance for artists to break away. Flourishing as the final expression of the Baroque movement, during its high time, its great pomp and splendour was critiqued for eroding any substance. Critics argued that its content remained vague, even mysterious. Opposing the overflow of embellishments, it was followed by neoclassicism, a countermovement marked by sobriety found in simple structure. It was “a period of austerity” – the return to, put in a modern, colloquial “less is more”. *According to experiments, we are not good at doing nothing. An article titled “People systematically overlook subtractive changes” [11] raises the observation that people are wired to add evermore, instead of subtracting ever-less, when asked to think of new ideas. Phrased in a nutshell, “people systematically default to searching for additive transformations, and consequently overlook subtractive transformations”. A year later, an (almost) exact replication of the study led to the same conclusion [12]. Whilst adding a cue for participants – i.e. “remember that you can add things or take them away” – only few participants were encouraged to generate a substrative idea. The conclusion: we rarely think of novelty through the idea of subtraction, rejection or annihilation. *Hi,As I already mentioned to Z, there has been a person sitting in the Tax library space and staring out of the window with a glazed look in her eyes […]Female, very short hair, she said when asked that she’s a trainee of marketing.She sat in front of an empty desk from 10:30am, went for lunch […]In 2008, employees at an office for the accounting firm Deloitte were troubled by the behaviour of a new recruit. In the midst of a bustling work environment, she didn’t seem to be doing anything except sitting at an empty desk and staring into space. Whenever someone would ask what she was doing, she would reply that she was “doing thought work” or “working on [her] thesis”. Then there was the day that she spent riding the elevators up and down repeatedly. When a coworker saw this and asked if she was “thinking again”, she replied, “It helps to see things from a different perspective”. The employees became uneasy. Urgent inter-office emails were sent. It turns out that the staff has unwittingly taken part in a performance piece called The Trainee. The silent employee was Pilvi Takala, a Finish artist […] [13]. *The book “Unikat” – meaning “unique item” in English – by Milorad Pavic is a book that presents the reader with an unseen form of literary play: a multi-ending love story that branches into one hundred different grand finales.Reader’s choice [14]. *Why did Alice fall down the rabbit whole? Curiouser and curiouser, is the answer [15]. *What does artistic research mean? *The end (… and not)*