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Bovim etterspør nye hoder til grønn utvikling

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Innovasjon Norge annonserte nylig at 38 prosent av deres finansieringsportefølje, er grønne prosjekter. Dette er hyggelig lesning for NTNU, som har bærekraft som et av satsningsområdene våre.

For å supplere den grønne satsningen, gikk NTNU inn som partner i det europeiske nettverkssamarbeidet Climate-KIC. Her er entreprenørskap og innovasjon drivkreftene for en grønnere verden, i godt samarbeid med det offentlige, etablert næringsliv og akademia.

Trondheim utforsker mulighetene

Jeg er spesielt glad for at Trondheim kommune også engasjerer seg i Climate-KIC, og med klare ambisjoner om å utforske og utnytte mulighetene i nettverket.

Ordfører Rita Ottervik skal blant annet delta med inspirasjonsforedrag på Climate-KICs Nordic Cities workshop i Malmø i slutten av april. Varaordfører Hilde Opoku åpner den nasjonale finalen i forretningsidekonkurransen ClimateLaunchpad. Der skal de beste grønne gründerne presentere sine forretningsideer med mål om å vinne 10.000 Euro og tilgang til Climate-KIC sin akselerator for finansiering på opptil 95.000 Euro.

Trondheim kommune deltar også sammen med vårt campusprosjekt i en workshop som fasiliteres av Climate-KIC i København. Bakgrunnen er at Københavns universitet har et stort "grønt campus-prosjekt" som vi kan lære av - og omvendt.

NTNU europeisk node

Som eneste norske partner i Climate-KIC vil NTNU være noden som binder alle norske aktører til dette nettverket av over 130 partnere i Europa.

Dette innebærer muligheter for utdanning, bedriftssamarbeid og offentlig samarbeid, finansiering for oppstartsbedrifter, forsknings- og innovasjonsprosjekter, samt et internasjonalt marked for grønne løsninger.

Alle kan delta

Som eneste kontaktpunkt i Norge, er det viktig å at ser vi utover våre egne fagmiljø og etablerte samarbeid. Det må tilrettelegges for at de beste løsningene realiseres, og her vil vårt nettverk i Climate-KIC være tilgjengelig.

"Alle" kan delta i Climate-KIC; forskere, studenter, store og små bedrifter, offentlige etater, byer og regioner.

Du kan lese mer om vårt samarbeid og de ulike mulighetene for deltakelse her. Ta gjerne kontakt med våre koordinatorer Lars Gjølme og Arild Smolan - de vil lose deg gjennom et hav av muligheter når det gjelder klimasatsning.

Stikkord: bærekraft, campus, campusprosjekt, Climate-KIC, entreprenørskap, featured, grønne gründere, gründere, innovasjon, Innovasjon Norge, Københavns universitet, nettverk, nettverkssamarbeid, Nyskaping, Rita Ottervik, smarte byer

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Innovasjon Norge annonserte nylig at 38 prosent av deres finansieringsportefølje, er grønne prosjekter. Dette er hyggelig lesning for NTNU, som har bærekraft som et av satsningsområdene våre. For å supplere den grønne satsningen, gikk NTNU inn som partner i det europeiske nettverkssamarbeidet Climate-KIC.

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Humor: Self-Proclaimed 'Thought Leader’ Gives Talk on 'Thought Leadership' 

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Humor: Self-Proclaimed 'Thought Leader’ Gives Talk on 'Thought Leadership' 

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Om du ikke har en original idè kan du i det minste se ut som om du har en!

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Rapport: Sosiale entreprenører - partnerskap for nye løsninger 

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Rapport: Sosiale entreprenører - partnerskap for nye løsninger 

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Sammendrag av forskningprosjekt i regi av Kommunesektorens organisasjon (KS)

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Rapport: Utredning om sosiale entreprenørskap

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Rapport: Utredning om sosiale entreprenørskap

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Utarbeidet av DAMVAD for Nærings og Handelsdepartementet

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Nettside om innovasjon

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For å utvikle nye og levedyktige teknologibedrifter, har SINTEF lykkes med å etablere et nytt tidligfase-fond med en investeringskapital på 500 millioner kroner. European...

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Senter for Sosialt Entreprenørskap og Innovasjon

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Senter for Sosialt Entreprenørskap og Innovasjon

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Nettside og organisasjon

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"Det er et uomtvistelig faktum at kompetansen alltid vil være større utenfor organisasjonen enn inni" - Leif Edvinsson, professor i intellektuell kapital.

I 2020 slås Ski og Oppegård kommune sammen til Nordre Follo kommune. Fram til sammen-slåingen skal de to kommunene finne samarbeidsformer og skape en felles plattform for ny organisering av tjenestene basert på innbyggernes behov. Det er mange samfunnsutfordringer, og offentlig sektor verken kan eller skal løse alle alene. Utviklingen går fort og det er mange endringer, det er derfor vanskelig å forutse framtidens behov for omsorg så vel som muligheter på arbeidsmarkedet. I Nordre Follo hentes det ubrukte potensialet som befinner seg i samskapt innovasjon ut for å komme disse utfordringene i forkjøpet.

Under navnet Sammen for morgendagens arbeidsliv i Nordre Follo kommune har NAV Ski og Nav Oppegård startet arbeidet med å samutvikle de nye tjenestene i Nordre Follo.
Brukerinvolvering og samarbeid på tvers
26. september ble det derfor arrangert et kick off-seminar for å skape inspirasjon og gi innsikt i hvordan sosiale entreprenører og intraprenører i offentlig sektor, næringslivet og frivilligheten, sammen kan bygge de nye tjenestene på en god og effektiv måte. Seminaret ble arrangert av Nav Ski og Nav Oppegård, de to kommunene og Senter for Sosialt Entreprenørskap og Innovasjon. Representanter fra flere virksomheter fortalte om sine erfaringer med intraprenørskap, entreprenørskap og innovasjon. Einar Lødemehl, NAV-leder i Ski kunne forteller om bakgrunnen for satsningen:

‒ Sammenslåingen er en mulighet til å skape et mer mangfoldig arbeidsliv og de gode tjenestene. Målet er å lage en kommune med nye, bedre og mer effektive tjenester som i møte kommer innbyggere og deres behov. Vi har tjenestesteder og innbyggere med mange behov. Vi er opptatt av å tenke utenfor boksen når det gjelder tjenesteutvikling og ønsker å bygge NAV-kontoret nedenfra og opp, gjennom å involverer både ansatte, samarbeidspartnere og brukerne. Vi ønsker å vite hva brukerne trenger for å bli selvhjulpne gjennom arbeid. Dette går tilbake til lederne - de må ha tillit at de ansatte faktisk kjenner brukerne, kan finne løsninger og er i stand til å ta ansvaret - det er en forutsetning for å gjøre det vi nå har begynt på.

Tone Skjelbostad, leder av NAV Oppegård, tilføyer: ‒ Det har lenge vært en holdning om at det er det offentlige som skal sørge for de som ikke får seg jobb på egenhånd. Samtidig ser vi en endring i privat sektor hvor stadig flere er bevisst sitt samfunnsansvar, og vil inkludere flere. Vi trenger også frivillig sektor og sosiale entreprenører - de som har lyst til å gjøre en forskjell og møte de behovene som finnes. Her kan man få til et spennende samarbeid.

Et gjennomgående tema for dagen var å bli inspirert til å finne arenaer for samarbeid og nye og kloke løsninger. ‒ I dagens samfunn sitter vi på ubegrenset adgang til informasjon og kunnskap. Derfor har vi heller ikke hatt bedre utgangspunkt for å ta tak i de utfordringene som berører mest, forteller Gro Herheim administrasjonssjef i Nordre Follo kommune. ‒ Det handler om kjernen i et samfunn; fellesskap, inkludering, likeverd, trygghet og utviklingsmuligheter for den enkelte. Vi trenger en stadig bedre brukerretting av tjenestene, så vi på best mulig måte kan møte framtidens brukere i Nordre Follo.
Kan Nordre Follo bli en superkommune?
Medvirkning og involvering er sentrale begreper, og dette gjelder både fra brukere av tjenester, ansatte og innbyggere. Et utenforblikk er essensielt for å kunne bygge de gode tjenestene. Har man blikket festet på mottakerne av en tjeneste, blir den lettere å effektivisere. Kommuner, næringsliv og entreprenører kan, med godt samarbeid, komme fram til mange gode løsninger. Her har Nordre Follo nå muligheten til å bidra med mye i tiden framover.

Follo kommunene er også veldig åpen i sin invitasjon til gründere. De ønsker seg et levende gründermiljø og inviterer inn både de som har startet opp og de som er i ferd med å starte opp. I den forbindelse har blant andre næringssjef i Nordre Follo, Bjørnar Angell, mange tanker om hva Nordre Follo kan tilby.

Muligheten for gode, lokale næringer kan ha mye å si for et godt samarbeid mellom kommune, næring og entreprenører. Derfor kan en næringsstrategi som legger til rette for utvikling av næringsarealer i kommunen være en sentral del av et slikt samarbeid. Han nevner også universitetet i Follo (Norges miljø- og biovitenskapelige universitet) som en god mulighet for godt, lokalt samarbeid.

‒ Dette er et universitet i den ypperste elite når det gjelder globale spørsmål; miljø, bærekraftig utvikling, fornybar energi og ikke minst matproduksjon. Lokalisert i nærområdet! Da er det klart vi må jobbe sammen med dem. Vi må jobbe for at det etableres næringer som kommer ut av den fagkompetansen de tar med seg derfra, og at kunnskapen som kommer derfra kommer lokale næringer til gode.

I tillegg trekker Angell fram bedrifters samfunnsansvar eller trippel bunnlinje. Mange lokale bedrifter bidrar allerede til et bedre samfunn gjennom flere gode tiltak. ‒ XXL har en egen inkluderingsansvarlig som følger opp kandidater fra NAV som skal ut i arbeid. Lefdal ansetter kun kandidater med nedsatt arbeidsevne og gir dermed verdifull arbeidstrening. Bilutleiefirmaet Avis leier ut biler gratis på søndager mot at man tar med seg mennesker som trenger selskap ut på tur. I Ski har kommunen er det til enhver tid over 40 lærlinger. Det er ikke lovpålagt og er et tegn på et bevisst forhold til samfunnsansvar også internt i kommunen.

Til sist understreker han at et viktig redskap for at lokalt samfunnsansvar skal fungere optimalt er at kommunen tar en rolle som tilrettelegger, de bør vite hva det er behov for i lokalsamfunnet og hvor de trenger hjelp fra næringslivet. ‒ Der tror jeg det kan bli et godt samarbeid, og det tror jeg lokalsamfunnet som helhet kan tjene på.

Resten av dagen bestod av inspirerende innlegg om hvordan innovasjon og trippel bunnlinje kan fungere i praksis. Katinka Greve Leiner, direktør fra Ferd Sosiale entreprenører holdt et av innleggene. - Jeg har et stort ønske om å styrke fornyelsen av et velferdssamfunn som ikke har råd til å gå ut på datoen, forteller hun. Ferd Sosiale entreprenører invester i sosiale entreprenører med målbares sosiale resultater, og bidrar med kapital, nettverk og kompetanse. - Jeg har møtt mange dyktige gründere og veldig mange interessante intraprenører, offentlig ansatte som har ideer og høy grad av desperasjon fordi de ikke har fått ideene gjennom.

Flere sosiale entreprenører bidro med kunnskap og erfaringer om sosialt entreprenørskap og innovasjon, og tilbakemeldingene tilsier at de i høyeste grad inspirerte til samarbeid. Noen av er allerede i gang med samarbeidet rundt unge med tittelen, #UngiNordreFollo. Dette var dagens deltagere:

Professor Benedicte Brøgger fra BI

Gründer Thomas Jesting fra IKT Huset AS

Gründer Thea Emilie Dalen Dille fra MERK Norge AS

Gründer Loveleen Brenna fra Seema AS

Gründer Firdawsa Ahmed fra Atlas kompetanse AS

Seriegründer Truls Berg

Anne Romsås fra Innovasjonsavdelingen i KS

Hilde Dalen, gründer av KREM og styreleder i Senter for Sosialt Entreprenørskap var programleder og ansvarlig for den røde tråden.

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"Det er et uomtvistelig faktum at kompetansen alltid vil være større utenfor organisasjonen enn inni" - Leif Edvinsson, professor i intellektuell kapital. I 2020 slås Ski og Oppegård kommune sammen til Nordre Follo kommune. Fram til sammen-slåingen skal de to kommunene finne samarbeidsformer og skape en felles plattform for ny organisering av tjenestene basert på innbyggernes behov.

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Intervju: How to debunk falske beliefs without having it backfire

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Intervju: How to debunk falske beliefs without having it backfire

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Hvordan overbevise noen som tar feil

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There's nothing worse than arguing with someone who simply refuses to listen to reason. You can throw all the facts at them you want, and they'll simply dig in their heels deeper.

Over the past decade, psychologists have been studying why so many people do this. As it turns out, our brains have glitches that can make it difficult to remember that wrong facts are wrong. And trying to debunk misinformation can often backfire and entrench that misinformation stronger. The problem is even worse for emotionally charged political topics - like vaccines and global warming.

So how can you actually change someone's mind? I spoke to Stephan Lewandowsky, a psychologist at the University of Bristol and co-author of The Debunking Handbook, to find out:
Susannah Locke: There's evidence that when people stick with wrong facts, it isn't just stubbornness - but actually some sort of brain glitch. Why is it so difficult to change people's minds?
Stephan Lewandowsky: It's not an easy task to update people's memories. That's a very clear result that even happens with completely innocuous items. It's a fundamental problem for our cognitive apparatus to update what's in our head.

What people have suggested - and what I think is going on - is that what people remember is the information, and then they attach a tag, "Oh no it's not." And the problem is that often this tag can be forgotten. So you remember the misinformation, but not the fact that it's false.

Now, one of the ways to get around that is to tell people not just that something is false, but tell them what's true. Alternative information makes it much easier to update your memory.
"You remember the misinformation, but not the fact that it's false"
That's a classic study where people are told there's a fire in a warehouse, and we found oil paints or flammable materials in the wiring cabinet. Then, later on, it will say, by the way, the wiring cabinet was empty. Now, if that's all you do, people will still think that there was oil paint in the wiring cabinet. Just simply saying something isn't true doesn't do the trick.

But instead, if you say the wiring cabinet was empty, and we found some petrol-soaked rags [elsewhere] at the scene, then people forget about the wiring cabinet because they have an alternative explanation for the fire. You need an alternativeto let people let go of the initial information.
Susannah Locke: What's the biggest thing people do wrong when trying to change other people's minds?
Stephan Lewandowsky: The moment you get into situations that are emotionally charged, that are political, that are things that affect people's fundamental beliefs - then you've got a serious problem. Because what might happen is that they're going to dig in their heels and become more convinced of the information that is actually false. There are so-called backfire effects that can occur, and then the initial belief becomes more entrenched.
Susannah Locke: How can people prevent these backfire effects on political issues?
Stephan Lewandowsky: It's very difficult. A lot of this stuff is about cultural identity and people's worldviews. And you've got to take that into account and gently nudge people out of their beliefs. But it's a difficult process.

One [solution] is that if you give people an opportunity to self-affirm their beliefs ahead of time. Let's talk about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They didn't exist, right? After Iraq was invaded, they didn't show up. And yet I think to this date about 30 percent of the public believes in the existence of weapons of mass destruction, and that's sharply along partisan lines. If you get Republicans into the laboratory, and you say hey, there weren't any weapons of mass destruction, that may strengthen their incorrect belief. We've done exactly that study.
"You get a liberal to talk to liberals and a conservative to talk to conservatives"
There's some evidence that you can avoid that if you ask people to tell us [about] an occasion when you felt really good about your fundamental beliefs in free enterprise (or whatever is important to the person in question). Then they become more receptive to a corrective message. And the reason is that it's less threatening in that context. Basically, I make myself feel good about the way I view the world, and then I can handle that because it's not threatening my basic worldview.

The other is you can have a messenger who is consummate with your beliefs. You get a liberal to talk to liberals and a conservative to talk to conservatives.
Susannah Locke: Have psychologists completely thrown out the information-deficit model - the idea that you can change people's understanding by giving them the correct information?
Stephan Lewandowsky: It's a nuanced issue. A couple of years ago, people basically said the information-deficit model is dead - it's all basically about culture. Now I think that's an oversimplification. It's a combination of two factors. Culture is extremely important. But it's also true that in some circumstances providing people with information is beneficial. That is, more information does enable people to sort out what's going on.
"Superficially just throwing information at people probably will make them tune out"
Now, the trick appears to be that you've got to get people the opportunity to deal with information in great depth. If you have a situation like a classroom where people are forced to sit down and pay attention, that's when more information is helpful. There's a lot of evidence of this in educational psychology.

Now the problem is in a sort of casual situation, people listening to the radio or having a superficial conversation - that's where the information deficit model doesn't apply. And superficially just throwing information at people probably will make them tune out. So you've got to be careful when you're talking about public discourse, TV, radio, media.
Susannah Locke: Let's say I'm going home for the holidays and have an uncle who doesn't believe in climate change. How can I change his mind?
Stephan Lewandowsky: It's difficult. There's a couple of things I can suggest. The first thing is to make people affirm their beliefs. Affirm that they're not idiots, that they're not dumb, that they're not crazy - that they don't feel attacked. And then try to present the information in a way that's less conflicting with [their] worldview.

One of the problems I've been working with is people's attitudes toward climate change. For a lot of people, the moment they hear the words "climate change," they just shut down. But there are ways that you can get around that. For example, it's been shown that if you show the health consequences of climate change or if you can have market-based solutions to the problem, that does not challenge their worldview too much.
"Affirm that they're not idiots ... [So] that they don't feel attacked"
If you tell people that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that 97 out of 100 climate scientists agree on the basic notion of global warming, it seems that is a gateway belief that enables people to recognize the importance of the issue.

More often than not, that is effective with people who are ideologically disposed to reject global warming as a fact. In general, people are very sensitive to what they perceive to be the majority opinion around them.
Susannah Locke: If you throw too much information at people, are they more likely to reject your stance?
Stephan Lewandowsky: That's quite nuanced, and it depends on how much time people are willing to invest in processing the information. If people sit down with the intention of listening and trying to undo the problem, then we have no evidence for an overkill backfire effect.

However, there's plenty of evidence that in a casual context - turning on the TV or whatever - you can dilute the message by putting too much information in it. This whole information-overload issue is more critical in a more casual context. And that's always important.

Most of the research on misinformation has mimicked casual situations. People just sit there and read something like a newspaper article, and that's when you get backfire effects and people are very susceptible to misinformation.
Susannah Locke: What about the "familiarity effect," in which just mentioning the wrong information could make it stick even harder?
Stephan Lewandowsky: As recently as two or three years ago, I would have assumed that it exists. Now, it's beginning to look like that's not terribly robust. We've had a hard time trying to reproduce it. It sometimes occurs and sometimes doesn't. I'm inclined to think it will turn out to be quite infrequent.
Susannah Locke: What's your favorite experiment that shows the difficulty of debunking?
Stephan Lewandowsky: The one study I like a lot is the one I did about the Iraq War that was published in 2005. And what we did there was to look at people's processing of information related to the Iraq War and the weapons of mass destruction. We ran the study in three different countries: in the US, in Germany and in Australia - at the same time.

And what we found is that Americans who knew something was false continued to believe in it, which makes no sense. We said, here's this piece of information and asked them if they knew it was retracted. And a minute later, we asked them whether they believed the information. And they continued to believe it. The Germans and Australians did not.

Now, at first glance, that makes it sound as though there's something weird about Americans compared to the other two nationalities. But what's really interesting is that's not the case at all. What drove this effect was the skepticism [of the reasons why the war was being fought in the first place]. It turns out that when we asked people if they thought the war at the time was fought over weapons of mass destruction, that item could predict whether people would continue to believe things that are false.

When you control for skepticism, all those differences between Americans and Germans and Australians disappear. There was an underlying cognitive variable that explains it. It just so happened that there were far more skeptics in Germany and Australia at the time.
Susannah Locke: How has psychology's understanding of debunking shifted since you first started studying it?
Stephan Lewandowsky: Over the past 10 years or so that I've been doing this, the role of cultural worldviews and people's identification with their own culture has been realized more and more. And equally, we know that skepticism is extremely important. People who are skeptical about the motives of someone telling us something - that's very important and fairly new.

Another thing that's emerged more and more over time is the existence of backfire effects - that if you tell people one thing, they'll believe the opposite. That finding seems to be pretty strong.
Susannah Locke: Have you seen people changing their messages in response to this new research?
Stephan Lewandowsky: The Debunking Handbook- that's been downloaded at least half a million times. So that message is getting out, I think. I've seen a lot of reference to that handbook, and I think some people in the media are now aware of how difficult it is to remove information from public discourse.

I'm vaguely optimistic that this research is having an impact. And certainly when it comes to government and large organizations, I think they're beginning to be fairly savvy in what they say and how they do it, in part because of the research.
Susannah Locke: Is there anything else important that people should know?
Stephan Lewandowsky: One thing that I would point out is that it's very important for people to be skeptical and anticipate that people will be misleading to the public. Some of the misinformation that's out there is not accidental. I think there's quite a bit that's put into the public discourse in order to have a political effect. It's supposed to be wrong, but effective.

What our research shows is that if people are aware of the possibility that they might be misled ahead of time, then they're much better at recognizing corrections later on.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity. It was originally published on December 22, 2014.
Go deeper:

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How to debunk false beliefs without having it backfire

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There's nothing worse than arguing with someone who simply refuses to listen to reason. You can throw all the facts at them you want, and they'll simply dig in their heels deeper. Over the past decade, psychologists have been studying why so many people do this.

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Video: 10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea

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Video: 10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea

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Fra TEDBlog

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10 tips for better slide decks | TED Blog

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Want to make a great slidedeck? A TED staffer shares some big-picture things to think about, and some helpful tactical tips.

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Video: Online social change: Easy to organize, hard to win

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Video: Online social change: Easy to organize, hard to win

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Om utfordringene med å skape endring gjennom online aktivisme

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Today, a single email can launch a worldwide movement. But as sociologist Zeynep Tufekci suggests, even though online activism is easy to grow, it often doesn't last. Why? She compares modern movements - Gezi, Ukraine, Hong Kong - to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and uncovers a surprising benefit of organizing protest movements the way it happened before Twitter.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference, and was featured by our editors on the home page.

Enthusiastically agree? Respectfully beg to differ? Have your say here.

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Zeynep Tufekci: Online social change: easy to organize, hard to win

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Today, a single email can launch a worldwide movement. But as sociologist Zeynep Tufekci suggests, even though online activism is easy to grow, it often doesn't last. Why? She compares modern movements -- Gezi, Ukraine, Hong Kong -- to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and uncovers a surprising benefit of organizing protest movements the way it happened before Twitter.

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Kronikk: That 'Useless' Liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech's Hottest Ticket

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Kronikk: That 'Useless' Liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech's Hottest Ticket

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Om hvorfor humanister er innovative

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In less than two years Slack Technologies has become one of the most glistening of tech's ten-digit "unicorn" startups, boasting 1.1 million users and a private market valuation of $2.8 billion. If you've used Slack's team-based messaging software, you know that one of its catchiest innovations is Slackbot, a helpful little avatar that pops up periodically to provide tips so jaunty that it seems human.

Such creativity can't be programmed. Instead, much of it is minted by one of Slack's 180 employees, Anna Pickard, the 38-year-old editorial director. She earned a theater degree from Britain's Manchester Metropolitan University before discovering that she hated the constant snubs of auditions that didn't work out. After winning acclaim for her blogging, videogame writing and cat impersonations, she found her way into tech, where she cooks up zany replies to users who type in "I love you, Slackbot." It's her mission, Pickard explains, "to provide users with extra bits of surprise and delight." The pay is good; the stock options, even better.

What kind of boss hires a thwarted actress for a business-to-business software startup? Stewart Butterfield, Slack's 42-year-old cofounder and CEO, whose estimated double-digit stake in the company could be worth $300 million or more. He's the proud holder of an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Canada's University of Victoria and a master's degree from Cambridge in philosophy and the history of science.

"Studying philosophy taught me two things," says Butterfield, sitting in his office in San Francisco's South of Market district, a neighborhood almost entirely dedicated to the cult of coding. "I learned how to write really clearly. I learned how to follow an argument all the way down, which is invaluable in running meetings. And when I studied the history of science, I learned about the ways that everyone believes something is true--like the old notion of some kind of ether in the air propagating gravitational forces--until they realized that it wasn't true."

Slack's core business benefits from the philosopher's touch. Hard-core engineers have been trying to build knowledge-management software for at least 15 years. Most of their approaches are so cumbersome that corporate users can't wait to quit. Slack makes everything simple. It bridges everything from Dropbox to Twitter, helping users organize documents, photos and data files into streamlined channels for easy browsing. Considering that Butterfield spent his early 20s trying to make sense of Wittgenstein's writings, sorting out corporate knowledge might seem simple.

And he's far from alone. Throughout the major U.S. tech hubs, whether Silicon Valley or Seattle, Boston or Austin, Tex., software companies are discovering that liberal arts thinking makes them stronger. Engineers may still command the biggest salaries, but at disruptive juggernauts such as Facebook and Uber, the war for talent has moved to nontechnical jobs, particularly sales and marketing. The more that audacious coders dream of changing the world, the more they need to fill their companies with social alchemists who can connect with customers--and make progress seem pleasant.

Think of the ways the automobile revolution of the 1920s created enormous numbers of jobs for people who helped fit cars into everyday life: marketers, salesmen, driving instructors, road crews and so on. Something similar is afoot today. MIT professors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argue in a recent book, The Second Machine Age, that today's tech wave will inspire a new style of work in which tech takes care of routine tasks so that people can concentrate on what mortals do best: generating creative ideas and actions in a data-rich world.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that by 2022 some 1 million more Americans will enter the workforce as educators. Another 1.1 million newcomers will earn a living in sales. Such opportunities won't be confined to remedial teaching or department store cashiers. Each wave of tech will create fresh demand for high-paid trainers, coaches, workshop leaders and salespeople. By contrast, software engineers' ranks will grow by 279,500, or barely 3% of overall job growth. Narrowly defined tech jobs, by themselves, aren't going to be the answer for long-term employment growth, says Michael Chui, a partner at McKinsey Global Institute.

Such nuances elude policymakers, who can't shake the notion that tech-centered instruction is the only sure ticket to success. President Barack Obama has repeatedly called for more spending on tech-focused high schools. In a February interview with the Re/code website, he hailed computer-programming classes as "a huge priority," adding: "It can't just be a handful of kids. It's got to be everybody."

In fact, people without a tech degree may already be benefiting the most from tech's boom . Some fascinating insights can be found on LinkedIn, which tracks graduates of specific universities as they move into the workforce. Say hello to the 62,887 LinkedIn members who attended Northwestern University in the past decade. Now zoom in on the 3,426 who have moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most popular destinations outside the Midwest, as they chase the Silicon Valley dream. Smart call: The Wildcats' top corporate employers include Google, Apple, Facebook, Genentech and LinkedIn.

Surprisingly, only 30% of these migrants ended up in engineering, research or information technology. As LinkedIn data show, most of the migrants have created nontechnical career paths in Silicon Valley. The list starts with sales and marketing (14%) and goes on to include education (6%), consulting (5%), business development (5%) and a host of other specialties ranging from product management to real estate. Add up the jobs held by people who majored in psychology, history, gender studies and the like, and they quickly surpass the totals for engineering and computer science.

Run the numbers on recent graduates of Boston University, the University of Texas at Austin or any of the University of California campuses, and the hiring pattern in Silicon Valley is seen to be broadly similar. A case in point is Rachel Lee, who graduated from UC, Berkeley with a communications degree in 2011; now she's an account manager at Slack. She's been at the company for barely a month but she's already helped a construction company assimilate Slack's software to keep track of things as varied as plaster shipments and building regulations via employee smartphones. Lee says she's in awe of her technical colleagues who write Slack's code. They, in turn, respect her because of her untechnical ability to "connect with end users and figure out what they want."

In Austin Suzy Elizondo can see tech's new power structure every time she looks around the room during customer meetings. She has been working for five years at Phunware, which develops mobile applications for a wide variety of customers, including AT&T, the Houston airport and celebrity astrologers. When she joined the company as a design specialist after earning an advertising degree from UT Austin, she was the odd one out. Most meetings were packed with software engineers.

Now nontechnical people from clients and from her own company often occupy at least half the seats. The reason: Software development keeps getting more automated. The rise of content libraries and plug-in modules means that mobile apps can be built much faster, with fewer people. But the nontechnical side--getting everyone to agree on what an app should look like--is more labor-intensive than ever. That means endless meetings and revisions for Elizondo, who's now a creative director overseeing a seven-person department.

Mobile technology doesn't only make life more convenient, observes Robert Tabb, a Phunware salesman who visits medical centers all year. Putting easy-to-use information on everyone's smartphone also redefines a lot of people's jobs. And that means lots of intense conversations about how big organizations should reconfigure themselves to handle these dislocations. Tabb sees this upheaval in action every time he approaches hospitals about installing mobile apps that guide patients toward their appointments, even if it's not obvious which corridors lead from the lobby to Room C-713.

"It takes about ten meetings for us to get one of these deals put together," Tabb says. "And only two of those meetings are about the technology." The rest of the time Tabb earns his keep by practicing shuttle diplomacy. Early on, the patient-relations specialists love his idea, but the building engineers are dubious. Once the physical mapping issues are resolved, new tensions flare up regarding the prominence--or absence--of the medical center's brand on the mobile app. Eventually everyone is happy, and the deal gets done.

Being able to read the room is such a crucial skill, adds Phunware sales executive Mike Snavely, that he's willing to hire people who don't know much about technology if they have a gift for relating to other people. It doesn't bother him at all that Tabb started out selling running shoes or that Elizondo sells handmade jewelry at weekend crafts fairs as a hobby. Eccentricity, at least relative to the geeks coding all night in the back, sharpens people skills, he finds.

To be sure, the financial payoff of an engineering degree remains strong. A 2014 report by the Association of American Colleges & Universities found that engineering majors earned an average of about $92,000 a year in their late 30s, compared with about $61,000 for graduates with degrees in the humanities or social sciences. But strong social skills turn out to be just as important as brainpower in determining future earnings potential. Catherine Weinberger, an economist at UC, Santa Barbara, has been analyzing government data on thousands of high school students and the incomes they earn many years later. Among her findings: People with balanced strengths in social and math skills earn about 10% more than their counterparts who are strong in only one area. In fact, socially inept math whizzes fare no better than go-getters who struggle with numbers.

Big tech employers are widening their hiring horizons beyond the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math. Larry Quinlan, Deloitte's chief information officer, argues in favor of "STEAM," in which the A stands for the arts. "It's not enough to be technologically brilliant," Quinlan says. "We need senior people who understand business processes, too."

This summer's fierce race to beef up sales teams is being played out every day in tech companies' hiring notices. Employee-software specialist Workday has 60 open positions in sales, exceeding the 51 in technology development. Ride-sharing king Uber needs 427 more brand ambassadors, partner-support reps and other operations wranglers, compared with just 168 more engineers. Even Facebook--run by die-hard engineer Mark Zuckerberg--has 225 openings right now for sales and business development specialists, compared with just 146 for software developers.

Bess Yount epitomizes the nontechie side of Facebook. She earned a Stanford bachelor's degree in communication and a master's in sociology. Outside the classroom she rounded herself out as captain of the lacrosse team. "I've always had a greater love for words than numbers," Yount says. That hasn't been a problem. When she joined Facebook in 2010, the social media company was evolving rapidly beyond its engineer-centric beginnings. Instead of envisioning a day when ads could be booked online without ever talking to a human being, Facebook's leaders began tapping into the benefits of a personal touch.

As a marketing manager focused on small businesses, Yount is on the road throughout the year, striking a rapport with shopkeepers who were raised on the Yellow Pages. She introduces them to a new era of advertising in which it's possible to target customers by age, gender, time of day, neighborhood and personal affinities. These bewildering new powers ("Should we target Rihanna fans? Taylor Swift fans? Both?") seem easier and more inviting in workshops that Yount runs all over the U.S. On a winter trip to the Berkshires, for example, she showed plumbers how to steer lots of ads into homeowners' news feeds right after a cold snap, so that people with frozen pipes would be likely to call.

Such hand-holding isn't cheap. Facebook spent $620 million on sales and marketing in the first quarter of 2015, nearly double from a year earlier. But the payoff for restoring human contact has been vast. Facebook's ad business, which was tiny in the days when everything was automated, now tops $12 billion a year and is growing more than $1 billion a quarter.

Even tiny businesses can gain a lot from customized Facebook ads, Yount says, if she can just help them crack the code. At a recent Philadelphia conference she highlighted the ways that diner owners can photograph a freshly baked pie and then use geo-targeting to show that photo to anyone walking within a mile of the shop. "One woman who did that managed to sell every piece of pie within three hours," Yount says.

In the restaurant industry, Shawna Ramona is the human face of the data revolution. She graduated from San Francisco State in 2002 with a degree in English literature. Now she is an iPad-toting "restaurant relations manager" for OpenTable, the online dinner-booking service. She calls on scores of restaurateurs a year, sharing insights that emerge from her company's data team. There's nothing technical in her background, but she knows how to connect with the old guard.

On a recent Tuesday she visited Umberto Gibin, the proprietor of two of San Francisco's most popular restaurants, Perbacco and Barbacco. He started in the restaurant trade 45 years ago as a teenage waiter in Italy, learning to carve ducks at patrons' tables. Panache defines him; when he bellows "Arrivederci!" to a departing guest, the whole restaurant can hear. His world is being rocked, though, by Moneyball -style insights culled from customers' smartphones, checks and online reservation data. Predictive algorithms can tell Gibin how long each guest is likely to linger and which bookings are the likeliest no-shows. "I'm trying to change with the times," Gibin says. "But I'm a dinosaur when it comes to technology."

Ramona makes the strain go away. She worked in restaurants for much of her 20s, helping manage everything from steak houses to sushi bars. She knows when to make small talk about radicchio and when it's time to circle a disappointing metric on her iPad before gently saying: "There's an opportunity here for you."

OpenTable is a case in point of how the tech sector has widened its horizons. In the late 1990s California chip engineer Chuck Templeton created OpenTable as a pure tech play: enabling anyone to book a meal reservation online, instantly. The general public loved his concept. Most eateries, however, lacked the scheduling software to make it work. So in 2000 OpenTable began putting muscle into building better information technology for restaurants.

Suddenly OpenTable needed salespeople. Years of selling helped OpenTable slip its software into more than 10,000 restaurants by 2008. That was a fragile triumph, however. Open-Table's engineers kept upgrading the company's seating systems and data analytics, only to discover that restaurateurs weren't paying attention. That created a greater risk of customer churn. If OpenTable wanted strong, lasting connections with restaurant managers and owners, it needed a second team of frontline relationship-builders.

So OpenTable executives began hunting for people who had waited on tables, tended bar or managed restaurants earlier in their careers. The company was moving beyond its beginnings as an automation tool. The new priority, as sales chief Mike Dodson explains, was to find or train evangelists who could "show how tech can enrich the dining experience." The influx of some 137 people like Ramona has expanded OpenTable into 32,000 restaurants, with only 14 data scientists needed to run its insight-crunching machinery.

At 4:30 p.m. on a recent Monday Ramona popped into Marlowe, a bistro in the same trendy San Francisco neighborhood where Slack is based. She greeted owner Anna Weinberg, who also owns Park Tavern and another property, with a big hug. The postwork rush hadn't started yet; Marlowe was empty. Moments later the two women were peering at Ramona's iPad, where a giant "opportunity" was on display. In the past year, it turned out, thousands of Open-Table users had been told seats weren't available at Park Tavern. Often people were trying to book tables far in advance. But Weinberg's restaurant offered only a 30-day look-ahead.

"Some people look two months out," Ramona explained.

"Fine!" Weinberg declared. "Let's do 60 days then. We'll do it for all three of our restaurants."

The next day Ramona worked her Uber account to exhaustion, dashing into a wide variety of San Francisco cafes, bars and restaurants. At a hipster cocktail establishment, Bar Agricole, Ramona let owner Thad Vogler know that he was getting 37% of his online bookings from mobile users, compared with 32% for his peers. Vogler grinned as if he'd just hit the lottery. His restaurant had been doing a big social media push, he explained, and now he knew it was working. "This kind of input is endlessly valuable," he declared.

In theory OpenTable could send data analysts on the road to share the same information. But Grant Parsamyan, OpenTable's head of business intelligence, shudders at the thought. He's a stocky man who favors plaid shirts at work. While he enjoys fine dining, he admits to being starstruck by the ways top restaurateurs project their authority. "I wouldn't be effective at all, trying to do what Shawna does," Parsamyan concedes.

When restaurateurs scoff at OpenTable's analysis, Ramona earns her keep. On a recent visit to Town Hall, a San Francisco restaurant that specializes in country ham and other southern-inspired cuisine, Ramona and a colleague, Denise Capobianco, suggested that restaurant manager Bjorn Kock wasn't doing enough to attract large groups.

Kock bristled. "Our design does not lend itself to a lot of large parties," he declared. Big groups take too long to finish, he explained. Their rush of orders at the same time strains the kitchen. Besides, his restaurant's long, angular layout would make big tables as unwelcome as a boulder in the midst of a stream. "Those tens!" he declared with a dismissive sweep of his hand. "I don't want them in our dining room."

Ramona didn't give up. "I see your point," she said. "But what about trying an experiment on Sundays, when traffic is lighter. You could offer one ten-seat booking at 5 p.m. That wouldn't strain the kitchen. It might be extra business that you wouldn't get otherwise."

Kock nodded his head. "That could work," he declared. "I'm totally willing to play around with that possibility." And thus the digital revolution spreads a tiny bit further, thanks to whiz-bang code underpinning OpenTable--and the interpersonal skills of an English major.
For an even deeper look at this article's themes, see the book "You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a 'Useless' Liberal-Arts Education," which builds out the reporting in this article. The book makes its debut in August 2017. A free preview is at www.georgeandersbooks.com.

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That 'Useless' Liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech's Hottest Ticket

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In less than two years Slack Technologies has become one of the most glistening of tech's ten-digit "unicorn" startups, boasting 1.1 million users and a private market valuation of $2.8 billion. If you've used Slack's team-based messaging software, you know that one of its catchiest innovations is Slackbot, a helpful little avatar that pops up periodically to provide tips so jaunty that it seems human.

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Om hvorfor vedlikehold er viktigere enn innovasjon

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Innovation is a dominant ideology of our era, embraced in America by Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and the Washington DC political elite. As the pursuit of innovation has inspired technologists and capitalists, it has also provoked critics who suspect that the peddlers of innovation radically overvalue innovation. What happens after innovation, they argue, is more important. Maintenance and repair, the building of infrastructures, the mundane labour that goes into sustaining functioning and efficient infrastructures, simply has more impact on people's daily lives than the vast majority of technological innovations.

The fates of nations on opposing sides of the Iron Curtain illustrate good reasons that led to the rise of innovation as a buzzword and organising concept. Over the course of the 20th century, open societies that celebrated diversity, novelty, and progress performed better than closed societies that defended uniformity and order.

In the late 1960s in the face of the Vietnam War, environmental degradation, the Kennedy and King assassinations, and other social and technological disappointments, it grew more difficult for many to have faith in moral and social progress. To take the place of progress, 'innovation', a smaller, and morally neutral, concept arose. Innovation provided a way to celebrate the accomplishments of a high-tech age without expecting too much from them in the way of moral and social improvement.

Before the dreams of the New Left had been dashed by massacres at My Lai and Altamont, economists had already turned to technology to explain the economic growth and high standards of living in capitalist democracies. Beginning in the late 1950s, the prominent economists Robert Solow and Kenneth Arrow found that traditional explanations - changes in education and capital, for example - could not account for significant portions of growth. They hypothesised that technological change was the hidden X factor. Their finding fit hand-in-glove with all of the technical marvels that had come out of the Second World War, the Cold War, the post-Sputnik craze for science and technology, and the post-war vision of a material abundance.

Robert Gordon's important new book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, offers the most comprehensive history of this golden age in the US economy. As Gordon explains, between 1870 and 1940, the United States experienced an unprecedented - and probably unrepeatable - period of economic growth. That century saw a host of new technologies and new industries produced, including the electrical, chemical, telephone, automobile, radio, television, petroleum, gas and electronics. Demand for a wealth of new home equipment and kitchen appliances, that typically made life easier and more bearable, drove the growth. After the Second World War, Americans treated new consumer technologies as proxies for societal progress - most famously, in the 'Kitchen Debate' of 1959 between the US vice-president Richard Nixon and the Soviet premier Nikita Kruschev. Critics wondered if Nixon was wise to point to modern appliances such as blenders and dishwashers as the emblems of American superiority.

Nevertheless, growth was strongly tied to continued social improvement. As older industries matured and declined, 'new industries associated with new technologies' would have to rise to take their place.

Yet, this need for booming new industries became problematic as the United States headed into the troubled times of the 1970s and early 1980s. Whole economic sectors, the auto industry, for example, hit the skids. A new term - 'innovation policy' - arose, designed to spur economic growth by fostering technological change, particularly in the face of international economic competition from Japan. Silicon Valley, a term that had just emerged in the late 1970s, became the exemplar of innovation during this time.

By the early 1980s, books casting Silicon Valley as a land of almost magical technological ingenuity had begun to hit the market. Innovation policy turned to focus more and more on 'regional innovation systems' and 'innovation clusters'. Everywhere was potentially the next Silicon Valley of X. This theme of locality reached its apotheosis in Richard Florida's 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative Class, which argued that regions succeeded by becoming the kinds of places that granola-crunching, mountain-bike-riding, computer-coding creative types wanted to live in. The book used the word 'innovation' more than 90 times and heavily idealised Silicon Valley.

During the 1990s, scholars and pop audiences also rediscovered the work of Joseph Schumpeter. Schumpeter was an Austrian economist who championed innovation and its partner term, entrepreneurship. Schumpeter pictured economic growth and change in capitalism as a 'gale of creative destruction', in which new technologies and business practices outmoded or totally destroyed old ones. Neo-Schumpeterian thought sometimes led to a mountain of dubious scholarship and magical thinking, most notably, Clayton M Christensen's 1997 tome, The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business. Now mostly discredited, Christensen's work exerted tremendous influence, with its emphasis on 'disruptive' technologies that undermined whole industries to make fortunes.

At the turn of the millennium, in the world of business and technology, innovation had transformed into an erotic fetish. Armies of young tech wizards aspired to become disrupters. The ambition to disrupt in pursuit of innovation transcended politics, enlisting liberals and conservatives alike. Conservative politicians could gut government and cut taxes in the name of spurring entrepreneurship, while liberals could create new programmes aimed at fostering research. The idea was vague enough to do nearly anything in its name without feeling the slightest conflict, just as long as you repeated the mantra: INNOVATION!! ENTREPRENEURSHIP!!

A professional innovation consultant advised his clients to ban the word at their companies. He said it was just a 'word to hide the lack of substance'

A few years later, however, one could detect tremors of dissent. In a biting essay titled 'Innovation is the New Black', Michael Bierut, writing in Design Observer in 2005, lamented the 'mania for innovation, or at least for endlessly repeating the word "innovation"'. Soon, even business publications began to raise the question of inherent worth. In 2006, The Economist noted that Chinese officials had made innovation into a 'national buzzword', even as it smugly reported that China's educational system 'stresses conformity and does little to foster independent thinking', and that the Communist Party's new catchphrases 'mostly end up fizzling out in puddles of rhetoric'. Later that year, Businessweek warned: 'Innovation is in grave danger of becoming the latest overused buzzword. We're doing our part at Businessweek.' Again in Businessweek, on the last day of 2008, the design critic Bruce Nussbaum returned to the theme, declaring that innovation 'died in 2008, killed off by overuse, misuse, narrowness, incrementalism and failure to evolve... In the end, "Innovation" proved to be weak as both a tactic and strategy in the face of economic and social turmoil.'

In 2012, even the Wall Street Journal got into innovation-bashing act, noting 'the Term Has Begun to Lose Meaning'. At the time, it counted 'more than 250 books with "innovation" in the title... published in the last three months'. A professional innovation consultant it interviewed advised his clients to ban the word at their companies. He said it was just a 'word to hide the lack of substance'.

Evidence has emerged that regions of intense innovation also have systemic problems with inequality. In 2013, protests erupted in San Francisco over the gentrification and social stratification symbolised by Google buses and other private commuter buses. These shuttles brought high-tech employees from hip, pricey urban homes to their lush suburban campuses, without exposing them to the inconvenience of public transportation or to the vast populations of the poor and homeless who also call Silicon Valley their home. The dramatic, unnecessary suffering exposed by such juxtapositions of economic inequality seems to be a feature, not a bug of highly innovative regions.

The trajectory of 'innovation' from core, valued practice to slogan of dystopian societies, is not entirely surprising, at a certain level. There is a formulaic feel: a term gains popularity because it resonates with the zeitgeist, reaches buzzword status, then suffers from overexposure and cooptation. Right now, the formula has brought society to a question: after 'innovation' has been exposed as hucksterism, is there a better way to characterise relationships between society and technology?

There are three basic ways to answer that question. First, it is crucial to understand that technology is not innovation. Innovation is only a small piece of what happens with technology. This preoccupation with novelty is unfortunate because it fails to account for technologies in widespread use, and it obscures how many of the things around us are quite old. In his book, Shock of the Old (2007), the historian David Edgerton examines technology-in-use. He finds that common objects, like the electric fan and many parts of the automobile, have been virtually unchanged for a century or more. When we take this broader perspective, we can tell different stories with drastically different geographical, chronological, and sociological emphases. The stalest innovation stories focus on well-to-do white guys sitting in garages in a small region of California, but human beings in the Global South live with technologies too. Which ones? Where do they come from? How are they produced, used, repaired? Yes, novel objects preoccupy the privileged, and can generate huge profits. But the most remarkable tales of cunning, effort, and care that people direct toward technologies exist far beyond the same old anecdotes about invention and innovation.

Second, by dropping innovation, we can recognise the essential role of basic infrastructures. 'Infrastructure' is a most unglamorous term, the type of word that would have vanished from our lexicon long ago if it didn't point to something of immense social importance. Remarkably, in 2015 'infrastructure' came to the fore of conversations in many walks of American life. In the wake of a fatal Amtrak crash near Philadelphia, President Obama wrestled with Congress to pass an infrastructure bill that Republicans had been blocking, but finally approved in December 2015. 'Infrastructure' also became the focus of scholarly communities in history and anthropology, even appearing 78 times on the programme of the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Artists, journalists, and even comedians joined the fray, most memorably with John Oliver's hilarious sketch starring Edward Norton and Steve Buscemi in a trailer for an imaginary blockbuster on the dullest of subjects. By early 2016, the New York Review of Books brought the 'earnest and passive word' to the attention of its readers, with a depressing essay titled 'A Country Breaking Down'.

Despite recurring fantasies about the end of work, the central fact of our industrial civilisation is labour, most of which falls far outside the realm of innovation

The best of these conversations about infrastructure move away from narrow technical matters to engage deeper moral implications. Infrastructure failures - train crashes, bridge failures, urban flooding, and so on - are manifestations of and allegories for America's dysfunctional political system, its frayed social safety net, and its enduring fascination with flashy, shiny, trivial things. But, especially in some corners of the academic world, a focus on the material structures of everyday life can take a bizarre turn, as exemplified in work that grants 'agency' to material things or wraps commodity fetishism in the language of high cultural theory, slick marketing, and design. For example, Bloomsbury's 'Object Lessons' series features biographies of and philosophical reflections on human-built things, like the golf ball. What a shame it would be if American society matured to the point where the shallowness of the innovation concept became clear, but the most prominent response was an equally superficial fascination with golf balls, refrigerators, and remote controls.

Third, focusing on infrastructure or on old, existing things rather than novel ones reminds us of the absolute centrality of the work that goes into keeping the entire world going. Despite recurring fantasies about the end of work or the automation of everything, the central fact of our industrial civilisation is labour, and most of this work falls far outside the realm of innovation. Inventors and innovators are a small slice - perhaps somewhere around one per cent - of this workforce. If gadgets are to be profitable, corporations need people to manufacture, sell, and distribute them. Another important facet of technological labour comes when people actually use a product. In some cases, the image of the 'user' could be an individual like you, sitting at your computer, but in other cases, end users are institutions - companies, governments, or universities that struggle to make technologies work in ways that their inventors and makers never envisioned.

The most unappreciated and undervalued forms of technological labour are also the most ordinary: those who repair and maintain technologies that already exist, that were 'innovated' long ago. This shift in emphasis involves focusing on the constant processes of entropy and un-doing - which the media scholar Steven Jackson calls 'broken world thinking' - and the work we do to slow or halt them, rather than on the introduction of novel things. In recent years, scholars have produced a number of studies of people who do this kind of work. For example, the science studies researcher Lilly Irani has examined the work low-wage labourers do to scrub digital information for the web, including Indian workers who check advertisements to 'filter out porn, alcohol, and violence'. Why not extend this style of analysis to think more clearly about subjects such as 'cybersecurity'? The need for coders and programmers in the cybersecurity field is obvious, but it should be equally obvious that fundamental vulnerabilities in our cyber-infrastructures are protected by the guards who work graveyard shifts and staff who repair fences and ID card-readers.

We can think of labour that goes into maintenance and repair as the work of the maintainers, those individuals whose work keeps ordinary existence going rather than introducing novel things. Brief reflection demonstrates that the vast majority of human labour, from laundry and trash removal to janitorial work and food preparation, is of this type: upkeep. This realisation has significant implications for gender relations in and around technology. Feminist theorists have long argued that obsessions with technological novelty obscures all of the labour, including housework, that women, disproportionately, do to keep life on track. Domestic labour has huge financial ramifications but largely falls outside economic accounting, like Gross Domestic Product. In her classic 1983 book, More Work for Mother, Ruth Schwartz Cowan examined home technologies - such as washing machines and vacuum cleaners - and how they fit into women's ceaseless labour of domestic upkeep. One of her more famous findings was that new housekeeping technologies, which promised to save labour, literally created more work for mother as cleanliness standards rose, leaving women perpetually unable to keep up.

There is no point in keeping the practice of hero-worship that merely changes the cast of heroes without confronting the deeper problems

Nixon, wrong about so many things, also was wrong to point to household appliances as self-evident indicators of American progress. Ironically, Cowan's work first met with scepticism among male scholars working in the history of technology, whose focus was a male pantheon of inventors: Bell, Morse, Edison, Tesla, Diesel, Shockley, and so on. A renewed focus on maintenance and repair also has implications beyond the gender politics that More Work for Mother brought to light. When they set innovation-obsession to the side, scholars can confront various kinds of low-wage labour performed by many African-Americans, Latinos, and other racial and ethnic minorities. From this perspective, recent struggles over increasing the minimum wage, including for fast food workers, can be seen as arguments for the dignity of being a maintainer.

We organised a conference to bring the work of the maintainers into clearer focus. More than 40 scholars answered a call for papers asking, 'What is at stake if we move scholarship away from innovation and toward maintenance?' Historians, social scientists, economists, business scholars, artists, and activists responded. They all want to talk about technology outside of innovation's shadow.

One important topic of conversation is the danger of moving too triumphantly from innovation to maintenance. There is no point in keeping the practice of hero-worship that merely changes the cast of heroes without confronting some of the deeper problems underlying the innovation obsession. One of the most significant problems is the male-dominated culture of technology, manifest in recent embarrassments such as the flagrant misogyny in the '#GamerGate' row a couple of years ago, as well as the persistent pay gap between men and women doing the same work.

There is an urgent need to reckon more squarely and honestly with our machines and ourselves. Ultimately, emphasising maintenance involves moving from buzzwords to values, and from means to ends. In formal economic terms, 'innovation' involves the diffusion of new things and practices. The term is completely agnostic about whether these things and practices are good. Crack cocaine, for example, was a highly innovative product in the 1980s, which involved a great deal of entrepreneurship (called 'dealing') and generated lots of revenue. Innovation! Entrepreneurship! Perhaps this point is cynical, but it draws our attention to a perverse reality: contemporary discourse treats innovation as a positive value in itself, when it is not.

Entire societies have come to talk about innovation as if it were an inherently desirable value, like love, fraternity, courage, beauty, dignity, or responsibility. Innovation-speak worships at the altar of change, but it rarely asks who benefits, to what end? A focus on maintenance provides opportunities to ask questions about what we really want out of technologies. What do we really care about? What kind of society do we want to live in? Will this help get us there? We must shift from means, including the technologies that underpin our everyday actions, to ends, including the many kinds of social beneficence and improvement that technology can offer. Our increasingly unequal and fearful world would be grateful.

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Innovation is overvalued. Maintenance often matters more - Andrew Russell & Lee Vinsel | Aeon Essays

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Innovation is a dominant ideology of our era, embraced in America by Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and the Washington DC political elite. As the pursuit of innovation has inspired technologists and capitalists, it has also provoked critics who suspect that the peddlers of innovation radically overvalue innovation.

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Her skriver vi en kort introtekst om hva vi mener sosial innovasjon er

Where does it come from?

Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..", comes from a line in section 1.10.32.

The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.

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Blogg

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Rapport: "Sosialt entreprenørskap og sosial innovasjon"

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Rapport: "Sosialt entreprenørskap og sosial innovasjon"

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Kartlegging av innsatser for sosialt entreprenørskap og sosial innovasjon i Norden "

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Om meningsløse fynd-ord i innovasjonsdebatten

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Omtrent annethvert år går den en ny bølge av svada gjennom norsk næringsdebatt. Et ord eller et fenomen som det påstås at skal sikre framtida vår etter olja havner på "alles" lepper. Det skrives om det i avisene. Noen som er gode å snakke og ikke veit så mye om økonomi holder foredrag på ulike næringskonferanser om hvorfor nettopp dette begrepet eller fenomenet er helt avgjørende for landets framtid. Til slutt havner det i stortingspolitikernes vokabular og som titler på regionale næringsplaner. Det siste markerer slutten på bølgen. Når et begrep når handlingsplanen til Østfold næringsråd er det over. Det blir stille, før et nytt begrep går gjennom den samme runddansen, gjerne med de samme aktørene både som foredragsholdere, skribenter og kommentatorer.

Det siste tiåret har synergier, konkurransekraft, innovasjon, innovasjonskraft, grønt skifte, omstilling og omstillingsskraft(!) vært populære. I år er det delingsøkonomi som er ordet. Siden i høst har du knapt kunnet lese en avis eller være på en konferanse uten å høre om dette fenomenet. Piratdrosjeselskapet Uber og utleieappen Airbnb er den nye vinen. Det er sink or swim, som de som har sett en amerikansk powerpointpresentasjon pleier å si. Det er framtidas løsning og vår utfordring. Og det er dette som kommer etter olja. Et samla norsk synsekor vil ha oss til å tro at det er sjølve framtida vi ser i hvitøyet når vi kan bestille drosje svart ved å bruke en annen app enn Taxifix. Det er akkurat like lite sant som at det ikke finnes problemer, bare utfordringer. Det siste nye av fjoråret var for øvrig at det heller ikke finnes utfordringer, bare muligheter.

Det finnes problemer. I en situasjon hvor oljeprisen har falt til en fjerdedel av det den var for to år siden finnes det hauger av dem. Og den såkalte delingsøkonomien løser ingen av dem. Like lite som vi kunne leve av å klippe håret til hverandre på 80-tallet, kan vi leve av å kjøre hverandre i drosje i 2016. Langt mindre av å bo perioder i hverandres boliger. Og det er det disse elektroniske tjenestene gjør oss i stand til. De forandrer ikke alt, de forandrer potensielt sett måten vi skaffer oss kunnskap om, kjøper og utfører noen tjenester på. Det aller meste forblir det samme.

For noen måneder siden hørte jeg redaktøren i en av Norges største aviser fortelle om hvordan alt forandra seg. Han snakka om alt det rette, om internett, sosiale medier, Uber og Airbnb. For å vise hvor raskt verden forandra seg, viste han to bilder fra Petersplassen i Roma. Bildene var tatt ved innsettingen av henholdsvis Pave Frans og Pave Benedict i 2013 og 2005. På det ene bildet ser man en folkemengde og blitsen fra ett eller to mobilkameraer. På det andre ser det ut til at hver eneste nysgjerrige katolikk holder et kamera over hodet. Dette bildet beviste i redaktørens øyne at ingenting kom til å være som før. Men kaster du et mindre app-entusiastisk blikk på bildet, vil du se noe annet. Alt er stort sett som før. Det utnevnes en ny pave. Petersplassen fylles med like mange folk. De står på samme sted. Den eneste forskjellen er at de holder en mobiltelefon over hodet og tar bilder de seinere aldri kommer til å se på. Verden forandrer seg raskt, men aldri så grunnleggende som entusiastiske foredragsholdere hevder.

Den såkalte delingsøkonomien er i beste fall en sosialistisk måte utnytte ressurser bedre på. Biler, hytter, hus og andre tunge investeringer kan deles av flere, vi sparer penger og kan produsere mindre. I verste fall, er det en kapitalistisk måte å ta fra arbeidstakere i servicenæringer pensjonsretter, sjukelønn og forsikring. Og en legalisering av en svart økonomi som vil tappe fellesskapet for store ressurser.

Det finnes helt sikkert en mellomting mellom disse to ytterpunktene, men foreløpig er det verste fall som er gjeldende regel.

Delingsøkonomien har ingen mulighet til å "bli den nye olja", like lite som kultur, finans eller asylmottak kan bli det. Når NHO ved inngangen til det som kan bli den største krisa i norsk produksjonsøkonomi etter krigen lager en årskonferanse som har Uber som et slags hovedtema, viser det først og fremst hvor sterk massesuggesjonen virker i næringslivsmiljøer. Det finnes helt sikkert medlemmer i NHO som ser dette som en gylden mulighet til å bygge ned fagforeninger og arbeidsfolks retter i Norge, men først og fremst handler det om flokkmentalitet. Bølgen av svada slynger over landet og treffer også toppetasjen på NHO bygger på Frogner, og dermed står Uber på programmet.

Norges problem er ikke at vi ikke har fått tak i taxier eller at hotellovernattinger har vært for dyrt. Problemet, og det er verken en utfordring eller en mulighet, er at prisen på vår viktigste eksportartikkel er redusert til et nivå som skremmer vettet av så vel investorer som selskaper. Umiddelbart mister folk jobben. På lengre sikt mister det norske samfunnet store skatteinntekter og store eksportinntekter. Svaret på det er verken delingsapper eller oppfinnsomme begreper. Det er industripolitikk, verdiskapning og samfunnsbygging.

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Omtrent annethvert år går den en ny bølge av svada gjennom norsk næringsdebatt. Et ord eller et fenomen som det påstås at skal sikre framtida vår etter olja havner på "alles" lepper. Det skrives om det i avisene.

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Intervju: Sosial innovasjon må drive utviklingen

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Intervju: Sosial innovasjon må drive utviklingen

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Innovasjon er både teknologisk og sosialt

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- Samfunnsforskning, ikke mer teknologisk innovasjon, vil redde verden. Det mener Luk Van Langenhove, direktør for United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies.

- Innovasjon må bli en bredere prosess. Vi trenger mer fokus på sosiale innovasjoner, fremholdt Langenhove på konferansen "Research for development" på Litteraturhuset i Oslo torsdag 1. november.

Forskere fra både giver- og mottakerland for norsk bistand diskuterte hva som har kommet ut av 50 år med utviklingsforskning.

Den sosiale verden er også oppfunnet

Dr. Van Langenhove pekte på at den sosiale verden vi regner, som vi kjenner og selvfølgelig i dag, er oppfunnet. Både penger, giftemål, nasjoner, skoler og børser er sosiale innovasjoner. - Det avgjørende for å løse de store spørsmålene i vår tid, er å finne ut hvordan vi kan generere og sette ut i livet nye ideer og framgangsmåter, sa han.

- Samfunnsforskere må kobles tettere sammen med sosiale entrepenører. Slik kan vi få bedre samfunnsforskning. Forskningen må bli enda mer handlings- og problemorientert - ikke prøve å kopiere naturvitenskapenes positivistiske paradigme. Vi må erkjenne at vi har en global forskningsallmenning og vi trenger mer sann interdisiplinær forskning.

Luk Van Langenhove snakket om "World development towards 2020 - challenges and needs in research". Han er direktør for United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS) i Brugge, Belgia. Han har tidligere blant annet vært assisterende departementsråd i det belgiske forskningsdepartementet.
Ved slutten av vestlig verdensherredømme
Han pekte på at vi ser slutten på vestlig verdensherredømme. I 2030 vil 3/4 av verdens befolkning leve i Asia og Afrika. G8-landenes andel av verdensøkonomien vil bli halvert fram mot 2050. - Vi må slutte å se på utviklingsbistand som noe vestlige land gjør for å bedre levestandarden i fattige land.

Den økonomiske tyngdekraften gjør våre bidrag stadig mer perifere. De nye sosiale innovasjonene, som endrer våre liv, kan like gjerne oppstå helt andre steder.

- Det er først ganske nylig vi har begynt å se forskning som en driver for utvikling. Tidligere ble det sett på som en fritidssyssel for de priviligerte å tenke på hvordan verden henger sammen. Utfordringen for forskning er todelt: På den ene siden forventes det at forskning i seg selv skal lede til vekst og framgang. På den annen side skal forskning bidra til å løse de store utfordringene.
Både en sosial og en teknologisk komponent
Dr.Van Langenhoves poeng var at styrking av naturvitenskapene og teknologimiljøene har vært sett som selve grunnlaget for utvikling, velferd og nye arbeidsplasser. Men de største utfordringene i vår tid har enten både en sosial og teknologisk komponent, eller er rene sosial spørsmål. Han pekte på helse, demografiske endringer og velferd, matsikkerhet og bærekraftig jordbruk, energi, smart og grønnere transport, klimaendringer, inkluderende samfunn og sist, men ikke minst, flernivåstyring med mange aktører.

Behovet for mer interdisiplinær eller integrert forskning ble et stort tema i debatten etterpå. Flere etterlyste mer vekt på kontekstualisering og maktanalyse. Anders Vatn var blant dem. Han viste til at den grønne revolusjonen lykkes der teknologien ble kombinert med adekvat politikk og nødvendige institusjonelle endringer.

Konferansen er organisert av Norad og Forskningsrådet, i samarbeid med Det kgl. Norske Videnskapers Selskab, Norges Tekniske Vitenskapsakademi og Norsk Forening for Utviklingsforskning.

Last ned programmet PDF - 1,2 MB for konferansen.

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- Sosial innovasjon må drive utviklingen

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Samfunnsforskning, ikke mer teknologisk innovasjon, vil redde verden. Det mener Luk Van Langenhove, direktør for United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies. - Innovasjon må bli en bredere prosess. Vi trenger mer fokus på sosiale innovasjoner, fremholdt Langenhove på konferansen "Research for development" på Litteraturhuset i Oslo torsdag 1.

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Nyhetssak: Innovasjon Norge ber Norge satse på seks næringer i fremtiden

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Nyhetssak: Innovasjon Norge ber Norge satse på seks næringer i fremtiden

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Oversikt over satsningsområder i 2016:

Bioøkonomi

Ren energi

Havrommet

Helse

Kreative næringer og reiseliv

Smarte byer

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- Disse seks områdene er områder hvor Norge har klare konkurransefortrinn og de er også svar på de utfordringene som verden allerede har definert med FNs bærekraftsmål, forteller administrerende direktør i Innovasjon Norge, Anita Krohn Traaseth, til NRK.

I dag legger tre av de viktigste premissleverandørene for omstilling, Innovasjon Norge, Norges forskningsråd og Siva, fram forslag til hva som må til for å fornye industrien og næringslivet i Norge.

Innspill fra hele Norge

Innovasjon Norge mener det ikke handler om å velge en enkelt næring å satse på, men i alt seks områder. Alt dette er områder hvor de mener Norge har spesielle fortrinn som landet bør utnytte maksimalt.

Innspillene og innholdet fra dem bygger primært på en massiv mobiliseringsrunde som de hadde i 2015, kalt "Drømmeløftet". Det er resultatene fra alle disse innspillene som selskapet nå legger frem.

- Vi har fått innspill fra alt fra Stavanger Symfoniorkester til Sametinget, Statkraft - alt som kryper og går av norsk næringsliv. Både fra etablerte bedrifter og nye gründere i oppstartsfasen, sier Krohn Traaseth.

- Trenger en tydeligere retning fremover

I tillegg har Innovasjon Norge hatt møter internasjonalt i 35 land og snakket med ambassadører og generalkonsuler og fått innspill til "hvilke mulighetsområder Norge har for å lage ny særstilling".

Dette kan til forveksling ligne på et grønt skifte, men det er mer enn det - det er ispedd både blått og rødt, sier Traaseth.

- Samtidig har vi mobilisert industri og næringsliv for å få noe klare ideer om hva det er vi trenger fremover: En tydeligere retning, en forståelse av at bærekraft består av både økonomisk vekt, grønnere hensyn, og også sosiale hensyn, sier hun.

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Innovasjon Norge ber Norge satse på seks næringer i fremtiden

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Disse seks områdene er områder hvor Norge har klare konkurransefortrinn og de er også svar på de utfordringene som verden allerede har definert med FNs bærekraftsmål, forteller administrerende direktør i Innovasjon Norge, Anita Krohn Traaseth, til NRK.

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Om statens rolle i innovasjon