Digital humanities: media ecology, innovation

1. Digital Humanities - Bocconi 2016 - Luca De Biase
Innovation
“People don’t know what they
want until you show it to them”.
Steve Jobs

2. A robot suitcase which
follows you is made by the
Israeli startup NUA Robotics.
It is full of sensors, computer
vision and robotics

3. Innovation is not a set of new things

4. Innovation changes a story…
or even history

5. Patterns of evolution
❖ Imagination (process of creation)
❖ Connection (enabling environment)
❖ Selection (choice of what survives and thrives)

6. Patterns of evolution
❖ imagination
❖ enabling technologies
❖ selecting mechanisms (market, research…)

7. selection by market forces
❖ finance
❖ sales
❖ talents

8. selection by research
❖ we can select by doing
research: that’s about what’s
true and false; what’s
documented and what’s not…
❖ verification handbook
❖ http://
verificationhandbook.com

9. selection by technology
❖ it works
❖ it is too old
❖ it is too new

10. Is it in sync with my time?

11. Patterns of evolution
❖ Moore’s law
❖ Metcalfe’s law
❖ Power law

12. Patterns of evolution
❖ Moore’s law
❖ Metcalfe’s law
❖ Power law
❖ Computing
❖ Networking
❖ Big Data

13. Exponential
adoption rate

21. Geoffrey Moore, Crossing the Chasm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm

22. Logistic curve
absolute numbers

24. network effect
cumulative
resources limits
in a world
imagination
enablingtechnologies
in a context of meaning
or in a given technology

25. Exponential (with a twist)

26. Exponentiality is not a given
On Singularities and
Black Holes in
Combination-Driven
Models of Technological
Innovation Networks.
by Ricard Solé, Daniel R.
Amor, Sergi Valverde.
Plos.

27. So: either you change context
and start a new rise…

29. … or you find a niche
in which to thrive

30. But what is this: finding a niche in
which to thrive?

31. Innovation is not a set of new things

32. Innovation changes a story…
or even history

33. Patterns of evolution
❖ Imagination (process of creation)
❖ Connection (enabling environment)
❖ Selection (choice of what survives and thrives)

34. Innovation
Five Dangerous Lessons
to Learn From Steve Jobs
1. Customers don’t know what they want
2. Maintain obsessive secrecy
3. Project a reality-distortion field
4. Micromanage every detail
5. Beat people up
http://www.forbes.com/sites/
chunkamui/2011/10/17/five-dangerous-
lessons-to-learn-from-steve-jobs/print/

35. Innovation happens
when the creation generated by new vision
is adopted

36. innovation is…
❖ …not a new thing…
❖ … it is a new thing that is adopted thus changes a story,
or history
❖ adopted means that people make that thing become part
of their lives
❖ There is some common narrative, a shared vision, an
understanding of the technology, a meaning and a use
value that is understood. And it just works

37. Innovation is where technology
and humanity meet

38. convergence
❖ Digital humanities are part of the innovation process…
❖ … because a common understanding needs a technical
narrative and a meaningful technology

39. convergence
❖ program
❖ project
❖ progress
❖ prospect
❖ prosperity

40. Innovation is a revelation

41. Readings
❖ Exponential organizations http://www.slideshare.net/vangeest/
exponential-organizations-h
❖ THE BARABÁSI-ALBERT MODEL http://barabasilab.neu.edu/
networksciencebook/download/network_science_december_ch5_2013.pdf
❖ BarabàsiLab: http://www.barabasilab.com and read some chapters of Link
http://www.barabasilab.com/LinkedBook/index.html
❖ Innovation Killers. How Financial Tools Destroy your Capacity to do New
Things, by Clayton Christensen, Stephen Kaufman and Willy Shih, 2008,
Harvard Business Review