I've been thinking a bit more about economics and innovation lately. Not exactly idly as it intimately relates to what I'm working on. Although I certainly do have idle interests too. (Now don't start yawning, this is fascinating stuff, you'll see.)
I've been lucky to have two economically-thinking bloggers stumble across my blog of late (both are fantastic): check out Sift Experiment and CultureBy. (Bonus: Grant of CultureBy has a new spin on the yet-another-branding-debate bandwagon.)
I highly recommend listening to The Co-Evolution of Innovation, a talk recorded and hosted at IT Conversations (not yet available), by Steven Weber, a prof at UC Berkeley and Director of the Institute of International Studies. Weber became fascinated with the open source model for software development because it's a massive experiment with an alternative property rights system with applications outside the software industry. (His book: The Success of Open Source)
Why I care? The Biggie: Property rights as Steven Weber says have dramatic ramifications to society (for instance, think about the end of feudal system). And open source was the first model that challenged the Fordist industrial organization as being either an inevitable or perhaps the best way to produce complex knowledge goods (is it really just another widget?). So open source created a production process that rests on distributed innovation, rather than a traditional division of labor.
Now I thought Lawrence Lessig was building bridges. Amazingly, Weber is going an order of magnitude beyond that in terms of really looking at how open and proprietary/closed systems can work in concert for innovation, competitiveness and creating value. So it's not Creative Commons versus Mickey Mouse, as sometimes even Lessig can frame the debate. Or even patented drugs versus generics. Thus it's not a walled garden versus open networks issue at all.
Nope, Weber persuasively convinces everyone in the audience that the David versus Goliath myth is self-defeating and wrong. He looks at the prototypical innovation cycle and demonstrates a new model where four innovation ecologies interact using both open and closed systems, and at the end of the cycle, this creates public infrastructure in everyone's interest. (Really need slides plus talk to do it justice.)
The winner or loser posturing fuels ideologies but totally misses the point. You don't truly want either side to "win."
Think of New York City. Central Park is an enduring space that's open and publicly available; but what would NYC be if that was all there was. Like to camp out in public on the lawn? Across from the park might be an exclusive apartment in a building that's locked up; but imagine NYC without Central Park. Both aspects - the open and private spaces - make NYC the dynamic bustling place it is.
And that's why Mr. Weber is on my The Real Persuaders list.
BONUS: Stumbling about looking for Weber's talk (yeah, it was just last night I know) on ITConversations, I came across Bruce Mau's talk on Global Creativity and intriguing launch (hmm, looks a bit too utopian my taste, but intriguing nonetheless) of the educational initiative, The Institute without Boundaries.
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