Jazz As Innovation Metaphor
There are two trains of thought that have led me to the following ideas: one is that unsustainable growth goals have killed commercial news outlets, and the other is that innovation must happen virtually everywhere in our system.
Jazz is my metaphor for innovation. The interview that sparked this idea aired on NPR April 7th. Later, an article on NPR appeared in the recent issue of Fast Company (yes, we still get the paper version… dammit I’m just that old… digitally aware… somewhat digitally agile, but damned if I don’t like to unplug and hold something to read that I can shake at the young’ns!).
I felt I should include a nod to NPR here, because all through my 25+ years in commercial radio at least half my presets were non-comms. That’s also where I got my start. This is an interesting case study, too, because behind NPR’s success isn’t just innovation, it’s Community. Here’s a quote from NPR’s new CEO, Vivian Schiller, ”…It’s the personal connection that’s the secret sauce.” And this is what community is about. (This also explains why your iGoogle page will not be the news source of the future. It is a great utility… but it has no soul.)
Jazz As Innovation Metaphor
When I try to explain my version of innovation to people, when I frame how changes can happen by iteration – and how a group of diverse individuals can “sing from the same song sheet” yet imbue the process with their own identity – I use Jazz improvisation as the metaphor. True, some eyes do glaze over.
But, here it is: one cannot improvise without understanding the basic underpinnings of the thing, any thing. The foundation of the thing must be acknowledged, and placed within a context, and only then can an iteration make sense.
Marcus Roberts, the Jazz pianist and subject of the NPR profile, is a modern Great. Here is Roberts’ take on Thelonius Monk’s contribution to jazz: “…his modern thinking and innovative approach… he’ll put two notes together that shouldn’t be together…” Jazz is the meeting of the “county folk and the city folk,…” where “its …tension and syncopation and… its’ timbre… is the reconciliation of differences….”
I would say that even major leaps, exponential changes, transformations, all owe something to the past. For even though I cannot decipher late Coltrane… he couldn’t have reached that level of innovation the first year he picked up a horn.
Agree? Disagree?
Final Note
Here is another Marcus Roberts quote that resonates with me: in describing his dedication to teaching Jazz and its’ history, Roberts says, “it is important to be able to explain clearly to people what you do, why you love doing it, and why they should care about it.”
That’s good for anyone, Jazz musicians or business startups.
I just got back from my first ever South by Southwest (SXSW) festival (and first-ever time to Texas…yee haw!). No, I was not there for the music. No, I was not there for the film. Although both of those portions are incredible and fun, I was there for the “interactive” portion: by self-proclamation, it exists to bring together “
