Creating the Spaces for Innovation

Blog Entry

The PIs that have hired me onto their projects have made spaces for me to innovate and to push the edges of instructional design. In the same way, I try hard to make spaces for my development team members to try new things and to stretch their capabilities. While "proof of concept" is a cool idea, in reality, it's just anything that has not been broadly tried in the field and which may / may not be directly doable.

In the spirit of the idea that it is our own responsibility to make sure that work continues to be interesting and challenging, I am a strong advocate for grafting innovations on current projects. The reason why this works better than just pursuing grants that are deeply innovative (which I'm all for, too) is that you already have political cover and funding for the project. Chasing money does require a certain amount of investment and risk-taking. And it is hard to risk good ideas on the chance that others may not fund it. Once the basics have been created, one can push the edges and develop newer contents or try newer presentation or teaching-and-learning methods.

Reasons to Innovate

What sorts of innovations am I thinking about? In one recent project, we worked to develop a science-based lab to accompany an online science course. To publicize the lab, we created an interactive article that helped readers engage with information and images of insects. In another, a global health course, we created an external game in order to bring a mainstream audience to a deeper understanding of global public health. Some mysteries were created for another public health course. We created a Second Life machinima slideshow to tell stories in yet another project. In a site to promote emotional health, we developed a webisode series. We built up a knowledge space built on a freeware wiki structure for yet another project. The takeaway: there's always ways to add more learning at the margins.

Why proceed in these directions? First, we need to be constantly developing our skill sets and trying out new technologies and methodologies. Second, and not trivially, we need to stave off boredom. Third, it's important to continuously build our portfolios. And finally, we like to amuse ourselves by seeing what can be done.

The Risk-taking

It's a lot easier to risk-take with those whom one trusts because that means we know generally how the others respond in times of stress and difficulty and challenge. We can coordinate and communicate fairly smoothly. That sort of level of connectivity takes years to build. (This is what Jim Collins calls getting the right people on the bus.) Innovation also requires understandings of others' skill sets and professional interests—so one can innovate on the edges of capabilities.

A Snowball Effect

What I've seen is that good ideas that manifest as fulfilling projects have a way of building on themselves. They encourage more risk-taking later on. They help promote team joyfulness and more risk-taking in the future. There's a lot to be said for being in a space that allows for such innovations. Different talents have their own attractions, and we proceed then with always scouting out possibilities.