Solving the Right Problem: Advice for Jason Kenney

No matter how you cut it, the TFW program has morphed into something it was never intended to be.

The Temporary Foreign Workers program (the TFW acronym mentioned above) was designed to bring in foreign labour to fill critical positions for which no qualified Canadians could be found.  This isn't a bad thing; it's essentially a variant on any contract work.  

If a business doesn't get and isn't great at digital media, for instance, they may want to hire an expert to do it for them.  Working families will contract out parenting to day cares because they need both parents working to afford a sustainable, satisfactory quality of life.  In politics, all kinds of things get contracted out to people with specialized skills.

The reality is, Canada has always lagged behind on advanced, value-added services; we've had no need to explore, do research and development, educate or train specialized in emergent fields.  We've always had natural resources to lean on.

At the same time, we've enjoyed a generally satisfactory quality of life, thanks in no small part to the welfare state.  As governments and other industries have increasingly focused on value-added lifestyles and competitive edge in sales, much of middle-class Canada has also had a floor under it in terms of job expectations.  

There are positions we look at as "lower class" and don't value, such as working in the fast food industry.  Equally, the employers in this space don't want those positions viewed as valuable - if they were, they'd need to invest more in them.  Like traditional manufacturing, fast food restaurants are designed to have have labour as simplified, replaceable and cheap as possible.

For their part, corporations and even small-scale employers are focused on the bottom line; how do I ensure that I'm maximizing wealth generation for myself/my shareholders who pay my tab?  You want to keep costs down, naturally, which means spending as little as possible wherever as possible.  

Higher wages for employees or more flexible vacation/sick days schedules does the opposite.  But then, so do bathroom breaks and maternity leave.  Those were rights that someone had to fight for but, ultimately, work out better for employers in terms of productivity.  

Especially in the Knowledge Economy, this is a critical distinction - I may need a body on the assembly line or at the drive-through for productivity in some fields, but in the Knowledge Economy, productivity isn't tied to space or time.  Like sales, it might happen better at certain times of the day and in environments other than the office.

Particularly when you factor in commute times, it may not make sense to want an employee sitting under your nose; that may actually detract from their overall productivity and, ultimately, your bottom line.

As an employer, you really need to understand what your client is buying and what they want to buy.  It may not just be a product - it might be an experience.

This is what politics has discovered and what smart retail outfits like Starbucks and Indigo are realizing; if you create experiences of engagement, you can build out a customer transaction into a customer relationship.

The thing is, though, when you start talking about relationship, you need to take into account all the elements that make a relationship.  The space is important, which leads into design thinking, but so are the interactions with front-line workers - like the staff at the Tim Hotons' counter.

I can minimize my cost by spending the least amount possible on my frontline workers, who after all are just delivering a product, or I can invest more time and resources to make sure they're brilliant at relationships so that they're building relationships with clients.

When I book a dentist appointment, I always ask for the hygienist I like the most.  If I'm going into an Indigo, I'll be more likely to take book suggestions from the agent who took time to chat with me and cared about my interests.  It's my preference to go to one coffee shop over another because I like the service.  

It's the service and the space more than the product that I'm investing time in.  The product has to be good, mind you, but there are lots of good products out there.  Experience, however, is harder to come by.

Which is a bit of why we're seeing lower turnout at voting booths; the experiences being sold to Canadians aren't designed to match our interests.  Attack ads work at knee-capping an opponent, but do nothing to drive up voter traffic.

Which is where we're at, both economically and democratically - the system isn't designed to offer the value that appeals to the current market.  As is the case in any market situation, when an alternative becomes available and is marketed enough to resonate, people will gravitate in that direction.

This is starting to happen in the labour market, right here in Canada.  Smart firms are realizing that to get the best talent, they can't just think transactionally - fee for service - they need to think relationships, which require more investment.  At the same time, the tango principle is coming in to play; to do it well, both parties have to be active participants.  This requires engagement, which requires trust.  

The payoff for an employer when they view their human resources as partners rather than tools is value-add; engaged, empowered labour will be more open, more cooperative and bring value to the table that the boss might not think of themselves.  

Empowering employees to be partners is making a lot of sense.  So to is making end-users part of the experience themselves.  User-Generated Content, crowd-sourced solutions, co-designed workspaces that essentially put a stone in the pot and empower clients to build a community that's reflective of and responsive to their own needs - now that's smart business.

The bigger trend is towards increasing the value of the person and viewing social capital as an essential part of wealth.  Economics is taking a back seat to behavioural economics as we start to understand what really motivates action (which, less face it, is the whole point of money anyway). 

This, in turn, means starting with behaviour first and designing  systems from the end-user out.  It's a big difference from what we have now, which is policy that aims to design or import people that match the needs of the system.

So if importing temporary foreign workers makes people angry, because they feel like they're losing their jobs, but people don't want to take low-pay/low-respect jobs they feel are beneath them and trying to persuade employers to add economic value through tax incentives isn't working, what's left in the toolbox?

I'd love to give Minister Kenney the answer, but alas, I know how he thinks.  He's about the dopamine, not the oxytocin.  Answers given freely won't be respected as valuable, he wants to have to pay for them.

So we'll leave with a question to the Minister - how much are structure-changing, history-shaping and name-making solutions worth to you?

Why Every Organization Needs Intrapreneurs

The way businesses are being run is changing from containing employees to empowering them. Organizations are realizing that every employee needs to see themselves as the CEO of their own brand. Each employee should be empowered to contribute to the success of their role and be the boss of their own role within the department. This is leading to much discussion about intrapreneurs which are entrepreneurs within an organization. This provides a healthy environment where workers get the opportunity to run their own venture within the company. This empowerment puts the onus of integrity, ownership and accountability over their role and KPIs.

I started at HootSuite in 2011 as their corporate sales trainer. In an effort to have our sales team eat our own dogfood, I eagerly explored how to use the platform to gives our team an advantage. This led to a research and exploration phase in which I stepped out of my conventional role in order to find more ways that a B2B sales team could utilize platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and others. My searching yielded very few results outside other than SocialSelling University and the great work Koka Sexton was doing. For the first time ever, I couldn’t have just “Googled it” and got all the answers. Rather than be discouraged, I took this as an opportunity and personal challenge to create content and try and shape an idea that I knew would soon have steam. One of the many reasons why HootSuite was such a great organization for me was that they encouraged me to run with the idea, and got support from the sales and marketing leadership team to plan and execute a webinar which ended up being the most registered and attended webinar to that point in time. The company also provided me the opportunity to blog regularly and input on marketing materials. This type of thinking is what make organizations successful - companies who leverage internal thought leaders and do things as a collective will succeed and leave silo-ed and rigid organization immobilized while have their competitive advantages and economies of scale reduced as a result.

Some ask what other benefits exist since it seems that it’s hard to justify loosening and readjusting current process that exist to contain employees in their repetitive and process driven routines? These employees are not driven by money, they are driven by the success of their roles and above all, they are driven by the success of the company. It is this reason why they step out of their given role to explore initiatives outside the box. These values create a great culture and work environment that breeds success. We see many companies forming a “lab” or idea incubator team within their organization. Having intrapreneurs is like doing this organically. You can give them an idea and they will take the initiative to take it from idea to reality with minimal hand holding.

Make intrapreneurial traits something your organization looks for, hires for, and covets.

Jim Flaherty to students: ‘Public service is good for you’

Jim Flaherty’s speech to a group of students at the Ivey business school at the University of Western Ontario on Tuesday, extolling the benefits of public service, was inspired by a talk the Finance Minister heard Robert Kennedy give at Princeton when Mr. Flaherty was an undergraduate student there. Some excerpts:

My mother believed firmly in the benefits of cod liver oil for the treatment of various maladies — in fact, most maladies. It tasted awful. So, my seven brothers and sisters and I would resist at first. We would relent in the end for two reasons: I t was actually good for us and, perhaps more importantly, mother was not to be disobeyed.

I am not your mother. I don’t have to be obeyed. But today I am here to urge you to consider something that will be good for you. I want you to consider public service as part of your career path. I recommend it, knowing from experience that public service will not be easy to take at times but it will be good for you in the end result. I can offer no greater assurance.

After taking the good advice of my mother, I eventually graduated high school and moved from home. I was fortunate to take my undergraduate degree at Princeton University. During that time, it was my privilege to attend a speech delivered by Robert Kennedy. His message to my own generation was crystal clear: “I need you. Your country needs you. The world needs you. You are the best and brightest of your generation.”

Today, about 40 years after I heard Kennedy speak, my message is the same: Canada needs you — your skills, talents, idealism, energy and enthusiasm.

Now, more than ever.

At the same time, you need Canada.

Because, as I can tell you, public service is good for you. It will give perspective to your life by expanding your horizons, your thoughts and your view of the world. You will learn that some issues and concerns are more important than others. This leads to discernment as choices must be made. This perspective will be useful in all aspects of your life.

Public service reminds us all that there exists a genuine concept of the public good in the broad public interest. While we value individual liberty and protect it, as Canadians we also maintain a strong tradition of the public good — that is, what is good for society as a whole, on balance, taking into account disparate interests and adopting the longer view. In public service you will participate in advancing this public good.

Public service is good for you. It will give your life a greater impact on others and your country.

In many ways ranging from individual matters to community concerns to national and global issues, the opportunities to be a positive force for others in public service are both plentiful and fulfilling.

That will make you happier, ultimately. We are, of course, not in the world alone and our lives here are finite. People seek to have an impact on broader public issues recognizing the intrinsic value of reaching out to others not only to maintain and reinforce shared common values, but also to create new initiatives and innovations. This societal public good is not incompatible with the private good. Our individual and family responsibilities are primary. Yet the desire to accumulate private goods in the end does not lead to satisfaction simply because, as we all learn, enough is never enough. On that train, some people will always be in the cars ahead.

If money was all that mattered to me, I would still be working as a lawyer in downtown Toronto. Because, I can tell you, I would be making a lot more money than I am now. But I would have missed out on so many experiences that have enriched my life. And I would have missed out on so many opportunities to shape and implement public policies that, in my opinion, have enriched others’ lives and made our communities and country stronger.

Public service is good for you. You will have opportunities to change the world around you in varying ways and to different degrees, large and small.

You will get opportunities to use your talents to implement your thoughts and beliefs. In concert with others, accomplishments will follow. Great adventure this, for disappointments and failure will follow also. Boredom, however, is not on the agenda.

One little anecdote: One of the most testing times in my career in public service was the recession that began in the fall of 2008.

In fact, we were in the midst of an election when it hit with full force. Had we been aware of the crisis on the horizon, the Prime Minister would have been unlikely to call the election.

Nevertheless, that was the situation. So I found myself campaigning for re-election in Whitby-Oshawa while juggling an increasing number of phone calls with the G7 finance ministers as we all became more aware of the breadth of the worldwide economic crisis.

One of the most surreal moments was election day itself. I was doing what we call in politics a Burma-Shave, where you stand by the road and wave at passing motorists. While I don’t know if this technique actually gets you votes, I do know that it keeps nervous candidates busy and not bothering their campaign team, the ones doing the real work.

At one point that morning I had to run down from the side of the road into the Whitby Brick parking lot and get on my cellphone to discuss the latest twists in the crisis with the American Secretary of the Treasury and my other G7 colleagues.

When I was your age, had anyone ever told me I’d one day be speaking to an American Cabinet officer and Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer while in a department store parking lot, I would have questioned their sanity.

But this is what could await you.

In this room it’s conceivable that we could have future mayors, future Deputy Ministers, Chairs of School Boards, a Minister of Foreign Affairs, or perhaps even a future Prime Minister.

In order for this to happen, however, you have to answer the call – the call like the one I heard Bobby Kennedy make so many years ago. Being involved in public service is an honour for me. I know that all MPs of all parties in the House of Commons, and members of the non-partisan public service at all levels, feel the same way.

Public service is good for you. It’s unlike any other career. It features long hours, relatively lower rates of pay than comparable positions on Bay Street, and it is often decades before you can witness the positive results of your labour.

Some of you might then ask: “If the hours are long and the pay low, why would I do it?”

The answer is simple: It is the most satisfying and personally enriching career you will ever find. This, my friends, is priceless.

Almost 100 years ago, one of Canada’s greatest Prime Ministers, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, addressed a group of Ontario youth. It was less than a month before his death in February, 1919.

He admitted that his generation had not solved all of Canada’s problems and was leaving much unfinished in their wake. Through public service, Laurier said, Canada’s young people would have to face these challenges themselves. And to do so, he left them the following words of advice.

“Let your aim and purpose, in good report or ill, in victory or defeat, be so to live, so to strive, so to serve as to do your part to raise even higher the standard of life and living.”

Just as in Laurier’s time, my generation doesn’t have all the answers. We have done the best we can. The levers of decision making will soon be in your hands. It matters little to me if you are, or end up, a Conservative, Liberal, NDP or Green party supporter. (Although I hope you find conservative principles engaging.) What matters most is when you walk out of this institution on graduation day you get engaged in your community, province and country.

Because your country is a land of opportunity for public service in these challenging times. Canada is looked to as an example of a country that worked during the recent global economic crisis and that has a plan to ensure the country continues to work into the future. Being part of shaping that future will be an amazing, enriching experience for any of you who choose it. Your country needs you. But it also has much to offer you.

So, one more time I will say: Public service is good for you.

Brands You Follow on Instagram Are Watching You Verrrry Closely (Kurt Wagner)

Brands You Follow on Instagram Are Watching You Verrrry Closely

The brands you follow on Instagram may be paying close attention to you — very close attention, in fact.

Union Metrics, the social analytics company behind the Twitter analytics service TweetReach, added an Instagram analytics tool on Wednesday. A major benefit to Union Metrics' customers is the ability to get detailed information about the followers who interact with its posts.

The new analytics offering includes what Union Metrics calls "detailed participant reporting," a tool that allows brands to identify their biggest fans within Instagram. Brands will be able to create timelines depicting the comments and likes from each fan, a heat map of when each fan comments and likes, and breakdowns of how often those fans engage with the brand.

In essence, brands will be able to pinpoint their biggest fans, helping them plan and execute their Instagram strategy.

"A deeper understanding of your fans and the people that are participating in your conversation really helps you to target your content," Hayes Davis, CEO of Union Metrics, told Mashable. "There is no such thing as too much understanding of your audience."

This is an approach shared by another Instagram analytics firm, Curalate, which also works to identify the most active participants for its clients. Curalate even helps its clients identify popular photos its fans are sharing, so those brands can share those photos on the brand website. It's yet another way brands are hoping to make a personal connection with their followers.

Union Metrics only looks at users' public data in relation to brands, Davis said, not their private information. "It's important for us to treat people's public data with respect," he added.

Facebook Profiles Can Predict Work Performance (Aaron Sankin)

Facebook Profiles Can Predict Work Performance

When a company is in the process of hiring a new employee, there's a standard set of things it typically does — follow up with references, check the cover letter for obvious typos, and do some basic due diligence to ensure all of the companies listed on the candidate's resume actually exist. A recent study conducted by researchers at Old Dominion University advises adding another task to that checklist: stalking the hopeful employees on Facebook. As it turns out, your social media profile knows more about you than you know about yourself.

The study, "Incremental Validity of Social Media Ratings to Predict Job Performance," looked at 146 undergraduate students who were employed outside the university they attended. Each student took an online personality test and agreed to have their social media profiles examined by a team of observers who rated them on a whole suite of characteristics ranging from agreeableness to neuroticism.

Those metrics were then viewed against ratings of each student's performance at work. Study authors Katelyn Cavanaugh and Richard Landers discovered that not only are the personality traits inferred from someone's Facebook profile a significant predictor of their job performance, but these correlations are stronger than those between the results of the self-reported personality test and job performance.

These ratings weren't just a strong predictor of job performance. Judgments of social media profiles also had a stronger correlation with a student's grades than did their self-reported personality tests.

The study's authors speculate that social media footprints have an advantage over personality tests because they often contain records of behavior stretching back years and are a relatively uncontrolled environment compared to a one-time personality test.

"This potentially additive value could be because people reveal more honest information through their behaviors represented in Facebook profiles than they do while filling out online forms," the authors note. "Alternately, traits represented in Facebook profiles may be more relevant in an academic or employment situation; Facebook profiles may capture more of the social components required for job performance, or social components that could hinder academic success."

The results of this study may not come as an enormous shock to a lot of employers, many of whom have been snooping on the profiles of job applicants for years. A 2009 study revealed that 45% of employers admit to using social media to assess job applicants and 35 reported that the information contained in those profiles has caused them to avoid giving offers to some candidates.

Even so, using social media as tool to evaluate potential hires can be highly problematic. A study published late last year in the Journal of Management asked professional recruiters to evaluate the social media profiles of college students who were applying for full-time jobs after graduation. This study failed to find a correlation between the recruiters' ratings and later job performance based on follow-up interviews conducted months later with the now former students' supervisors.

It also found that people who ‟had traditionally non-White names and/or who were clearly non-White" tended to receive low ratings. "Our results suggest that Blacks and Hispanics might be adversely impacted by use of Facebook ratings," study author Philip Roth told Forbes. (The equally disturbing possibility here is that we'd see the same thing when those recruiters interviewed those people in person.)

Another danger of basing hiring decisions on social media is that looking at someone's Facebook profile could given an employer a piece of information that could leave them open to a lawsuit. For example, if a hiring manager sneaks a peek at a candidate's profile and learns he's gay or holds a specific set of religious beliefs, then doesn't offer the candidate the job, the candidate could sue for discrimination on the basis of religion or sexual orientation.

Since many people set their profiles to private, it can be difficult for employers to directly access the information. As a result, some companies have begun forcing candidates to turn over their passwords so hiring managers can access their accounts. A dozen states, stretching from California to Delaware, have passed legislation outlawing the practice; however, efforts to impose a similar ban nationally have stalled due to GOP opposition.

Gary Vaynerchuk's Lessons for Life and Business (Linda Lacina)

 

 

Gary Vaynerchuk's Lessons for Life and Business

By Linda Lacina|March 28, 2014

   

"Survival" was a major buzzword at the South by Southwest Interactive festival this year in Austin, Texas, and event planners and marketers talked often in life-or-death terms. They seemed desperate to keep attendees like me in Wi-Fi and non-GMO energy bars at all times. I appreciated the efforts (and love non-GMO energy bars) but the extremes belied what is to me the real value of the conference, which has less to do with elbowing my way through a crowd and more to do with the simple, quiet surprises that come from chance conversations and interesting people. 

 

Much of this occurred to me while attending Gary Vaynerchuk’s session “How to Rock SXSW.” He’s an entrepreneur, author and angel investor and this session was planned for the first official day. But it included so much of the simple, “aha” stuff, with applications outside of this event and this town, or business in general, that I share it now, after SXSW has ended. (If you are pressed for time, and cannot skip ahead, it all boils down to one point: Be good, but try your damnedest to be better.)

 

Here are some of the biggest takeaways:

 

Pay forward first.

Or as Vaynerchuk put it: "Don’t be a fracking taker."  Ok, Vaynerchuk didn’t say “fracking.” You’re creative and you can guess what he really said.

 

Still, he addressed a problem that plagues not just business, but relationships in general. You can’t just push ideas at people. When you harangue and say "look at this, look at that, look at me," you’re trying to take time and attention that you haven’t yet earned. "This is an event when every single person comes with an objective to close. And the way to actually break out is to reverse it," Vaynerchuk said.

 

To illustrate the point, Vaynerchuk shared a story about his first SXSW when he ditched a party’s long line and created his own party in the lobby of a Marriott, serving 10 cases of wine he’d had shipped down to share. Yes, it promoted his business at the time, but it also set him apart from the crowd. Vaynerchuk refers to it as his breakout moment in tech. “The ones who break out take the time to provide value” and connect on a human level, he said.

 

Enjoy more. (AKA: “Stop fracking bitching.”)

Ripping on SXSW has become a sport in itself. Detractors cite long lines and crowded panels as reasons to dismiss the event altogether. “There could be 9 million people at this event," Vaynerchuk said. "You as a human being have the ability to make this a very big event or a very small event.”

 

Vaynerchuk pointed out that despite the demands of his business, his weekends aren’t spent working -- they’re spent with his family. “This isn’t tactical," he said. "This is a decision.”

 

Vaynerchuk said he realized recently when planning a vacation with his wife that he could have planned any number of other trips and hadn’t, and wouldn’t get that time back. Since then he created clearer divisions between his business and personal time. “I’m not super smart but I’m a good halftime adjustor.”

 

Farm. Don’t hunt.

 The common advice for SXSW (or any networking event) is the usual say-hello-to-five-strangers. Vaynerchuk sees this as a type of hunting, or acquiring new people for your circle. But he emphasizes the importance of old friends and how he spends more time at SXSW with his friends in from New York than he ever does back home.

 

Vaynerchuk stressed nurturing contacts and spending a fifth of your time seizing the chance to strengthen those bonds. “Reinvest in the relationships you already have,” adding, “My biggest objective is to have the most people show up to my funeral as possible. I’m sorry. That’s what it is.”

 

Be human.

 In life and business -- and even SXSW -- there’s the pressure to make certain connections or get a certain type of visibility. But as Vaynerchuk noted, closing yourself off to experiences or people only limits your own opportunities. “I promise when you stop strategizing about people’s clout and start acting like a human being you will win.”

 

Be grateful.

Vaynerchuk was born in the eastern European country of Belarus and immigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was three. He sees that as his great luck, understanding the opportunities that entrepreneurship has afforded him.

 

As he spoke, I realized that I rarely hear native-born Americans acknowledging that same access. I know there’s any number of things I take for granted, even though I try not to. And when you take things for granted you can’t harness the energy that comes from feeling you’ve been given a special chance, setting the stage for grousing. “I hate hearing people complain their glass is half full when it is 4/5 full," Vaynerchuk said. "I’m grateful when there’s one drop because I know what to do with that drop.”

 

Finish what you start.

At a conference like SXSW, Vaynerchuk has a packed schedule -- so packed he’d considered citing business emergencies to lighten the load. But he realized that was just a sort of short-term selfishness. During the presentation, he reminded attendees that with anything in life or business, pangs of fear or even laziness can get in the way of doing what we really need to do. It’s in keeping our promises and finishing what we start that we not only learn, but that we can start to build trust. 

 

“IQ value is shrinking and the EQ [Emotional Intelligence] value is exponentially exploding as our reputations are more and more that matter.” He added, “Legacy is greater than currency.” 

Innovation: The History of a Buzzword (Emma Green)

Innovation: The History of a Buzzword

In the 17th century, "innovators" didn't get accolades. They got their ears cut off.

Wikimedia Commons

 

The word innovation might be mantra of business leaders and the inevitable future star of The Atlantic  and Aspen Institute's forthcoming Aspen Ideas Festival. But the irony behind the king of buzzwords is that, originally, "innovation" wasn't a compliment. It was an accusation.

 

In fact, shouts of "Innovator!" used to be akin to charges of heresy. As with any question of intellectual history, the path of innovation through the centuries is complicated. Canadian historian Benoît Godin has done extensive research on the topic; oversimplifying his work quite a bit, a few of the key moments in the strange history of how innovation is framed and discussed seem particularly striking.

Modest ideas that can change the world. See full coverage

 According to Godin, innovation is the most late-blooming incarnation of previously used terms like imitation and invention. When "novation" first appeared in thirteenth century law texts as a term for renewing contracts, it wasn't a term for creation -- it referred to newness. In the particularly entrenched religious atmosphere of sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe, doctrinal innovation was anathema.

 

Some saw this kind of newness as an affiliation with Puritanism, or worse -- popery. Godin cites an extreme case from 1636, when an English Puritan and former royal official, Henry Burton, began publishing pamphlets advocating against church officials as innovators, levying Proverbs 24:21 as his weapon: "My Sonne, feare thou the Lord, and the King, and meddle not with them that are given to change" (citation Godin's, emphasis mine). In turn, the pot-stirring Puritan was accused of being the true "innovator" and sentenced to a life in prison and worse -- a life without ears.

 

Innovation began taking root as a term associated with science and industry in the nineteenth century, matching the forward march of the Industrial Revolution, although the language of that period focused more strongly on invention, particularly technical invention. Several factors helped invention develop a prestigious and positive connotation, including the rise of consumer culture, increased numbers of patents, and strong government focus on building labs for research and development, Godin argues.

 

So when did the focus change from invention to innovation? Godin attributes this differentiation to a 1939 definition offered by Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter. He defined invention as an act of intellectual creativity undertaken without any thought given to its possible economic import, while innovation happens when firms figure out how to craft inventions into constructive changes in their business model.

 

Over time, a new element got woven into the definition of innovation, shifting its common understanding to "bringing to market a new technology." In Godin's view, this was especially tied to government funding for research and development in laboratories and foundations. From the early 1950s until the 1980s, he said, innovation was understood as a process: theoretical research in labs provided an initial foundation; applications of that research were devised and developed; and from there, they became commercialized products. Innovation was thought of as a packaged, predictable research product, and according to Godin, government funding for these kinds of ventures directly corresponded to the rise of this understanding of innovation.

 

So how does today's fixation on innovation stack up against this history? For roughly 100 years, from about 1870 to 1970, the American economy brimmed with newness. Since then, George Mason economist Tyler Cowen claims, the forward march of technological progress has hit something of a dry spell, regardless of what all the talk about innovation may indicate.

 

"There's too much self-congratulations," he said. "Americans have this self-image that we're the great inventors, [but] we've dropped the ball in many areas. We also see a lot of social tolerance -- people confuse that with technological breakthroughs. [They have] a vague sense that things are getting better."

 

The Internet does count as one big innovation from the past few decades, Cowen says, but he believes most of the economic gains from the Internet will come from applications that have yet to be developed in areas like manufacturing. What has been achieved, however, is a greater ability to manipulate information, which has an outsized affect on the lives and work of a relatively small segment of the population. These people happen to be the folks that spend the most time talking about innovation, though: journalists and academics.

 

So how could we improve the way we talk about innovation? Have a little humility, Cowen says. "We're going to do it anyways, so we should try to do it right. Look at the period from 1870 to 1920 or maybe 1940 and think about how unbelievably creative and powerful that was."

 

Although actual innovation might be in decline, mentions of innovation are resurgent. In an interesting twist of history, the word also seems to have transformed into shorthand for "anything new and/or good." Google's useful Ngram database of word use finds that not only is "innovation" suddenly a bigger deal than "invention," but also total mentions have reached an all-time high.

 

For this, you can probably thank  the annual buffet of lists that crown the "30 under 30" or "40 under 40" most "disruptive" innovators in any given field and the fact that "lack of innovation" has become the easiest way to explain everything from slow job growth to Apple's falling stock.

 

Measurable innovation might be on the decline, but, for some reason, we just can't stop talking about it.