Derivative Knowledge and Innovation. Oh, the tension you’ve been giving me.
The whole world and its underlying foundations — human progress, society, historic moments and evolution— work around these two sides. If not equal, both are crucially important for our ecosystem.
My tension has been what types of thoughts I’ve been having; for my writing, and my business. It’s actually more about the types of thought I want to cultivate. I’m scurrying to find something truly innovative, and I disregard derivative work easily. But after, much length, I’ve decided to be grateful for derivative thinking as well. It’s not as bad as I thought. And it doesn’t deserve the bad rep it gets. Maybe you can see it too.
Most of the glory goes to innovation. It’s exciting, fresh and full of promises. That’s why everyone wants to be a part of this bandwagon. Not so much for creating a derivative product, service or thought. “Your work is derivative” is a slur. Ergo: you are a fraud.
Derivatives allow us to test the fundamentals of innovation. Adapting it, twisting it, burning it in different environments; keep testing it until we see the cracks. And only then, something changes. Derivations are an improvement, validating this newly discovered intelligence and methods in different environments.
The real problem with derivative work is that you see it everywhere. You’ll always have more volume. There’s a lot of noise and little surprise. Most of the changes are incremental, if any, and others are recycled garbage that adds nothing. And some people commit the sin for confusing the two. It’s a pain hearing someone call their derivative feature a spankingly brand new innovation for mankind. But that’s what happens- they dress up their old wine in a new bottle and expect us to be refreshed.
What do we find Innovative?
I think there’s a time for standing on the shoulders of giants, and a time for staking new frontier. I can understand why everyone wants to be the first person on Mars. You won’t remember the third.
Here’s how the dictionary defines innovation: “The act of introducing something new.” That is a high-bar. So the more I think about examples of innovation, the less I can actually find them. Which is strange, because I’ve heard that word everywhere since the last decade. Did Apple really create the first touchpad? Was Google introducing the concept of search engines? No. But as winners, they take the glory of innovation for themselves. The market and audience doesn’t care how words are thrown about. Anyone can be innovative. And everyone is.
Elon Musk spoke about the “assumption of first principles” in solving problems without looking at analogies for context. Yet admitting influences makes us relatable. We’re the Uber of directories, providing a search engine for retail and a Facebook for platforms with the customer service of Zappos!
Maybe we’ve set the bar too low.
Laws governing commerce have a narrower perspective. Patent law talks about ‘incremental improvements’ when defining novelty. That seems like a reasonable expectation. You don’t want to reinvent the wheel every time. So the law is actually protecting derivative thinking.
… And now I’m thinking, about the invention of the wheel. Which iteration produced the circular one? Maybe the first prototype had a lot of friction.
In any case, we’re judging our levels of innovation by not being sued for infringement. That is a simple standard to follow, and the litmus test to our creative freedoms. At least that’s a case in the US. But not having clone companies and IPR retribution enforced doesn’t mean innovation must be bubbling here. In fact- Silicon Valley is full of derivative work insisting on being innovative, a focus on mediocre services, and a cesspool of incremental improvements.
I don’t want to give examples of derivative startups. Because according to the dictionary mostly all of them are. It’s not that the entire ecosystem copies each other. A lot of derivative work is good and necessary for us to move forward. These people are creators. But they walk on a think line with the imitators.
Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso were creative people. They could take an established idea as a starting point, then jump on another tangent, and then another - until they would create something so unique that you couldn’t guess the source. Hiding the sources was a mark of creativity. It’s our ability to look at the dots around us and connect them into unique patterns. Creative people don’t have to be innovative. They sex up existing ideas and create new ones.
Adaptations are not Derivatives
The copy-cats, clones, imitators and recyclers are a separate category unto themselves. They replicate derivative work, and hope for their success. But they don’t add anything new.
Let’s talk about Flipkart, which is India’s largest online e-commerce platform. It was founded by two former employees of Amazon. And when you look it at, Flipkart did nothing more than land grab the e-retail space in India. This is recycled stuff. It’s an adaptation.
Most adaptations aren’t fun. They’re predictable. They’re inevitable. I’ve seen this play before. All things being equal- if I want to know what Flipkart does in the next two years, I’ll see what Amazon did seven years ago. But all things are seldom equal. Which is why you’ll find customized drama to any narrative. And that becomes its whole life-cycle.
The same can work out for China’s Baidu or RenRen. The most prolific peddler in this game is Germany’s Rocket Lawyer which is a factory of clones.We only need to look at the end product to know where they came from.
It’s perfectly viable as a business model. But adaptations are the low hanging fruit, instead of writing a new story. Yes- consumer spending habits are different in country X, and the inflation of country Y takes their distribution model on another level. “Our conditions are more unique than your conditions.” But it’s the same show with different ponies.
In contrast, is another Indian startup, RedBus, which created a platform by taking the concept of ticket selling, plugging it into local bus travel and in the end created something very unique to their conditions. This is something successful, and a story unto itself. Similary, ZocDoc took the concept of online reviews and appointment booking, and applied itself to solving a very focused problem of the supply of doctors.
Is there Innovation Anywhere?
Mark Twain: “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”
There are so many articles about this concept that new ideas are dead. That everything is just the same stuff being recycled for new sentiments and tastes. And philosophically, we already have this wisdom. When the Buddhists spoke of rebirth, it wasn’t just physical. Our consciousness would pass from one sphere and evolve. Apparently, we have all the accumulated knowledge of the world in us already. We just realize it late.
Despite that feeling true, I don’t believe it. No. I think new ideas are and can be born. Even better: they can be intensely original.
Innovation fuels the fire, derivatives are the log from which the next flames jump out of. They are two very distinct things, yet intertwined for existence.
So I’m grateful for all the derivative learning. I appreciate innovation more, knowing how elusive it is. I’ll sparingly use that word now and not chase it like a wild unicorn.