I write this after I came back from a session on why cant we build modular cars…every once in a while I get to hear a speaker who not only has a far out concept but has done his homework.
The session started simple, with some questions on if we came across a 50 year old car could we drive it, and correlated that to if we came across a 50 year old computer could we use it.
With that start he took us through the concepts of innovation and evolution in a few sentences…
Evolution = ( random variation + natural selection ) N
Innovation = ( experimentation + market selection ) N
And introduced the blocks that he felt would make up the modular car, and then took us to the work he has done on it. He actually has taken a car apart, and put it back together replacing major sections (engine!) into a modular car. Sure it’s dangerous, sure we wont see it on the road anytime soon, but it follows his definition of Innovation.
So why am I so excited about structural integrity. If he hadnt laid down the foundation of “modular is what made innovation in the computer industry”, and hooked it to third party validation from a book called “Design Rules – Volume 1” to the independent blocks that could be called modules in a car…we would have written off his presentation.
Here was somebody who knew that what he is trying to do is far-fetched, and understood that we needed an education before we would even look at the possibility of a modular car, and took us there.
So when he said that between order on one end, and chaos on the other there is the realm of the “adjacent possibility”, and with all the startups that seem to come up with crazy possibilities, out comes the “adjacent possibility” and that is innovation. Edison would not have had his “lightbulb moment” if he had not tried so many times.
Structural integrity…and experimentation, should take us to the “Adjacent Possibility”!
Samyeer Metrani 