Downfalls of Innovation Towards Efficiency

Recently, when thinking about the word 'innovation' and what it means, something that has been heavily discussed within our seminar, I began to associate the term with 'efficiency'. I believe that a lot of times, when companies or businesses are trying to become more innovative, it is usually aiming towards one of two goals; creativity and efficiency. Focussing on the latter, it often becomes a problem when certain softwares or procedures are put in place in order for things to be done more efficiently as it removes a lot of human thought behind the tasks. An example to better demonstrate my point would be the application called Grammarly. This application that can be downloaded on one's devices automatically edits grammar and word flow when an individual is writing. An application such as this one does make work much more efficient however removes human thought and we ultimately end up losing the skills that we would obtain if we were editing our text ourselves.

Do you agree with this statement? Do you think there are any other downfalls to innovation towards efficiency?

Comments

  1. Unknown24 March 2018 at 13:42

    Interesting comparison with the Grammarly app. I also just downloaded the software and have been happy with the results. It has saved me time and has given me a sense of security when drafting emails or even these discussion posts. At the software company I worked at this summer, the engineers would constantly improve our software to increase efficiency or ease of use. More oftentimes than not, this would only cause more problems and create more undetectable bugs that would slow the progress of the entire company. In this context innovation was viewed as a quick fix but was not sustainable for big picture success. Another example would be the updates we receive to our iPhones. Every time there is an update, it improves one function at the expense of another. Is this innovation or overcompensation? It's hard to say, but I think the point of innovation is to allow industry decision makers to steer us in the right direction of technological improvement.

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