Trends

We spoke abundantly to the becomming of our cities over the summer. Between the Megaphone initiative, the Greater Nancy area's mobile initiatives and Louise Guay's conference at Creative Mornings Montréal, a strong trend seems to emerge.

In a post published early August, the American researcher Eric McNulty pushes the exploration further by extracting five principles that aim to accelerate innovation in the city, for the city. "Five principles to Turbocharge Innovation" sketches a code for the fullfilment of the current trend towards a more collaborative urban space. 

Five collaborative principles

1. Together, we know more: is the refusal of a domination by experts and a dehierarchization of the creative and collaborative relationships in working groups. 

2. Many victories are possible: exiting the logic in which, by analogy with contemporary professional sports, only one victory is possible, winning becomes everybody's business. Playing as a metaphor is useful here, with "infinite games" (such as in the prisonner's dilemma) where, in the long run, the important is not to finish but to play per se (the creation of 'worlds' such as those in World of Warcraft or The Sims are based on this principle). 

3. Tough on ideas, nice with people: we all have seen bad ideas survive much beyond their useful life. It is important to say things bluntly all the while granting ideators new opportunities to generate new ideas. Debates must be rigourous, but avoid any form of moral judgment. 

4. Listen, and avoid jargon: it is easy for activitists, academics and other such 'specialists' who bathe daily in a self-referential world to take refuge behind empty words and fashionable expressions that do not bear the same meaning for all. Even if such buzzwords are unavoidable – even useful in many contexts – they constitute the basis of a language-game that need precision. 

5. Be creative, not clever: the quasi-imperative feeling that one must put forward briliant ideas is omnipresent in social contexts, particularly when faced with new collaborations. But the greater collaborative achievements often start with imperfect ideas and incomplete concepts. Leave a bit of room for them. They constitute fundamental bricks for the making of an original house. 

A useful piece, like a small recipe for the urban innovators who, in the coming days, weeks and months, still have lots of work on their plates.