但我們對創造下一個新事物的迷戀,是否已經讓我們忽略真正重要的事?
歐萊禮媒體創辦人提姆.奧萊理盛讚:「這是我這麼多年來讀過最重要的一本書……它解釋了現今科技、經濟甚至全球到底哪裡出了錯,並提出了一項非常簡單的解方:莫忘初衷,想想你的產品為何而生,並致力於此。」
這個時代,想要避開創新,可以說是難如登天。不管是完全沒聽過的全新發明,甚至連一把新牙刷,都打著創新的名號,企圖在消費市場搶下一席之地。然而,研究科技進展領域的學者李.溫澤爾及安德魯.L.羅素卻反倒認為,一味追求創新只讓我們更貧窮,甚至威脅我們的安全,更諷刺的是,反而與創新的目的背道而馳。
根據多年的研究及報導,「創新就是好」的這種觀念已經造成不少問題。企業花了好幾百萬美金雇用創新部門人員,但他們的核心產業卻在衰敗中;資訊科學系所專注於程式及介面設計,但業界真正缺乏的卻是IT與系統維護人員……甚至,創新成了殺人兇手,2018年,邁阿密佛羅里達國際大學新建的行人天橋,原本以創新的建造法為傲,最後竟然倒塌,造成數人喪命。
在本書中,兩位教授更進一步指出,有許多我們賴以為生的工作價值因而被大大地低估,危害了我們的經濟及基礎建設。這部研究紮實、深具啟發性的作品,對於為何我們該轉移對「創新」的迷戀,該如何做到這件事、並將注意力投注在被人們長期忽視的維修、照護、保養等區塊,提出強而有力的論點和實行方向,任何關心小至道路舖設、橋梁建造的安全問題、大至經濟未來走向議題的讀者,都能在本書中獲得啟發。(文/博客來編譯)
For forty years, innovation has been the hottest buzzword in business. But what if the benefits of innovation have been exaggerated, and our obsession with the new has distracted us from the work that matters most?
It's hard to avoid innovation these days. Nearly every product gets marketed as being disruptive, whether it's a new technology or a new toothbrush. But in this manifesto on the state of American work, historians of technology Lee Vinsel and Andrew Russell argue that our focus on shiny new things has made us poorer, less safe, and--ironically--less innovative.
Drawing on years of original research and reporting, Russell and Vinsel show how our fixation on innovation has harmed every corner of the economy. Corporations have spent millions hiring chief innovation officers while their core businesses tanked. Computer science programs have focused on programming and development even though the overwhelming majority of jobs are in IT and maintenance. Suburban sprawl has left cities with expensive infrastructure and piles of deferred maintenance whose costs often run twice the amount of their tax bases. And sometimes, innovation even kills--like in 2018, when a Miami bridge hailed for its innovative design collapsed onto a highway and killed six people.
Vinsel and Russell tell the at-times humorous, at-times alarming story of how we devalued the work that keeps our world going--and in so doing, wrecked our economy, left our public infrastructure derelict, and lined the pockets of consultants who combine the ego of Silicon Valley with the worst of Wall Street's greed. They offer a compelling plan for how we can shift our focus in resources away from the pursuit of growth at all costs, and back toward the people and technologies underpinning so much of modern life.
For anyone concerned by the crumbling state of our roads, bridges, and airports, and the direction our economy is headed, The Innovator's Delusion is a deeply necessary re-evaluation of a trend we can still disrupt.