{"id":645,"date":"2017-11-21T13:29:56","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T18:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/?p=645"},"modified":"2017-11-21T13:29:56","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T18:29:56","slug":"innovation-v-origins-one-and-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/2017\/11\/21\/innovation-v-origins-one-and-the-same\/","title":{"rendered":"Innovation v. Origins: One and the Same?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I entered the seminar room on Tuesday night solely knowing the title of Professor Vittorio Loreto\u2019s lecture, \u201c<\/span>Novelties, innovation and the adjacent possible.\u201d As an STS major, I was immediately captivated when I first heard it, both confused and intrigued by what Professor Loreto might discuss. Hailing from Universit\u00e0 La Sapienza in Roma, giving a talk in Waterville, Maine, in a series entitled \u201cOrigins: Order V. Chaos\u201d seems like the perfect storm of strange, interesting, and ultimately \u201cvery STS.\u201d Centering the lecture around innovation, Loreto brought together mathematical and philosophical ideas, ultimately making the informed claim that while quantitatively, innovation is certainly increasing, this is only at the hand of larger numbers of people innovating. While this is positive, it also emphasizes the saturation of the \u201cinnovation market,\u201d and that innovation itself may become watered down as a result of the sheer involvement.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Looking on history, we can identify key innovations as entirely novel introductions of ideas and \u201cproducts.\u201d Of course, innovation is defined by being something new, but the amount by which something is new can vary significantly. Origins and innovation are seemingly contradictory, as origins represent the past and innovation represents the future. Yet simultaneously, these two concepts are extremely similar. Origins represent \u201c<\/span>the point or place where something begins, arises, or is derived,\u201d while innovation represents the very \u201cthing\u201d that has been created. How can the bridge between these two ideas be crossed, while using one to inform the other? It is a vicious circle of identifying how innovation and origin are developed, as each idea is a birth on its own, and the chronology doesn\u2019t lend itself to a straightforward linearity. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The interplay between origins and innovation is also not possible without the third segment of Loreto\u2019s lecture, \u201cthe adjacent possible.\u201d This term seems to be another \u201cvery STS\u201d term, as straying towards the edges of possibility only expands what possibility can be defined by, thus constantly stretching boundaries and exploring into the unknown. This concept resonated with me heavily, as during my thesis writing and even beyond classwork, my goal is to constantly expand my knowledge base and create multi-dimensional intersections of understanding and learning. In STS, and increasingly at Colby, exploring these boundaries is a staple of growth, as we might ask ourselves a question proposed by Professor Loreto, \u201cWhat are all the different possibilities of things we can do in the next 24 hours?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I entered the seminar room on Tuesday night solely knowing the title of Professor Vittorio Loreto\u2019s lecture, \u201cNovelties, innovation and the adjacent possible.\u201d As an STS major, I was immediately captivated when I first heard it, both confused and intrigued by what Professor Loreto might discuss. Hailing from Universit\u00e0 La Sapienza in Roma, giving a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[377708],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":646,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions\/646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st132origins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}