Reframing and radicals

Reasoning about the world in a way that fits your own personal context is a basic and very human phenomenon. This means that we reason about our existence in the context of our setting. Our setting is the culture, social, and norms that influence our day-to-day operational view. My view is that innovation can only happen when we question our setting first before all else. Lets look at some of the social networking phenomena; a new platform is created to rethink what was unthinkable a few years ago. Social software is an example of how an unthinkable reality is playing out globally.

Innovation as an activity, or discipline relate to underlying ability of people to be radicals. Radicals that can break the rules and question functional basics. The challenge comes in when an innovation needs to be sustained. Even though we try and keep things the same, changes around us force us to shift with times. Can we deduct that sustainability only relates to “keeping things the same” in such a way that we are forced to change continuously just to stay the same. Social media is important because you and I determine the pace of content renewal. A concept called crowd sourcing provides some insights into into one aspect of this global phenomena.

Reframing…our ability to think about a new future without being linked to the tentacles of the past becomes incredibly difficult. Apple Inc is a good case used by innovation researchers all the time. Sometimes its about technological innovations and other times about business model re-design. And, yes, I’m one of those that love this company that’s being ably to rethink industries and re-invigorate themselves time after time. Radical moves for radical times.

The reason we don’t see this often is; be an entrepreneur and create a business then get it to grow and sell it to some large company or “list it” and get out. This is the money making model used by many entrepreneurs around the world. There are a few that stick around to see their creation flourish. The “McDonalds” of business model execution is to make a model, and then flip it.

Thoughts on reframing:
• Always question the context you are operating in to remove tunnel vision.
• Find the radicals and figure out how radical you are.
• Its always about the “thinking”, the new thought processes that form in swarms that take you by surprise when things finally come together.
• Reason about your potential place in the new future.