What Classic Literature Tells us about Modern Innovation

How to Create Products that Endure by Tyler Goodwin

Classic literature can tell us more about modern innovation than you might imagine. Seminal literary works, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses to Ginsberg’s Howl somehow manage to endure the test of time—a quality business leaders struggle to apply with predictability to new products in the marketplace. In this case, my goal is to understand the pattern of how literary innovations, in much the same way as product innovations, emerge from context, and how that concept can help you create strategic innovation opportunities with the endurance to stand the test of time.

To understand the historical pattern, we need not look further than the foreword of any perennial text. Successful literary innovators have one essential thing in common—the ability to capture the latent sentiment of their day, and thus free people to express themselves similarly within the new boundaries created. Followers subsequently echo these new sentiments and explore these new boundaries until others develop a latent desire to shift the conversation in a new direction. We have seen this with Howl, where Ginsberg captured and exploited society’s latent need for frank, even vile, self-expression. And, this effect is what seminal literary works have always achieved.

Further using both Howl and Metamorphoses as examples, let’s explore the product innovation implications that we can draw from this concept of capturing sentiment—specifically with regard to a company’s strategic position as an innovation leader or laggard. Click
Classic literature can tell us more about modern innovation than you might imagine. Seminal literary works, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses to Ginsberg’s Howl somehow manage to endure the test of time—a quality business leaders struggle to apply with predictability to new products in the marketplace. In this case, my goal is to understand the pattern of how literary innovations, in much the same way as product innovations, emerge from context, and how that concept can help you create strategic innovation opportunities with the endurance to stand the test of time.

To understand the historical pattern, we need not look further than the foreword of any perennial text. Successful literary innovators have one essential thing in common—the ability to capture the latent sentiment of their day, and thus free people to express themselves similarly within the new boundaries created. Followers subsequently echo these new sentiments and explore these new boundaries until others develop a latent desire to shift the conversation in a new direction. We have seen this with Howl, where Ginsberg captured and exploited society’s latent need for frank, even vile, self-expression. And, this effect is what seminal literary works have always achieved.

Further using both Howl and Metamorphoses as examples, let’s explore the product innovation implications that we can draw from this concept of capturing sentiment—specifically with regard to a company’s strategic position as an innovation leader or laggard. To read more go to this link:

http://tyleragoodwin.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/ovid-x-context-how-to-create-products-that-endure/