Innovative Simplicity

Last week I was invited to speak about entrepreneurship as a career choice to a career exploration class at Andover Middle school. Looking back I would say it was successful. Their teacher, Mr. Foxx, said I had them eating out of the palm of my hand. The thing that made me know I had their attention was the way they kept asking questions about entrepreneurship and what it means to be an entrepreneur. If only we had a way to bottle the curiosity of 7^th graders and sell it to the teenagers of America….but I digress. 

One question in particular stuck in my mind all through the weekend and has prompted this post. “Jonny B,” said the young girl sitting in the fourth row, “can an entrepreneur innovate but not use technology?” I was kind of stunned by such an insightful question, coming from a 12 year old.

“Ummm, yes.” I said, kind of stalling, “You know, like if you were to somehow innovate the way that people interact or make decisions. I would think it would be possible and valuable” 

Did she feel like humanity was too dependent on technology? Was she afraid that she didn’t have the capabilities to innovate and be entrepreneurial using technology? Or was she just hinting at the modern myopic view of how innovation works? Whatever it was, it certainly got the gears turning.

Youth Entrepreneurs is absolutely interested in using technology to innovate the way we accomplish our mission. As you read this post, scarce resources are heavily invested in new websites, an online business plan builder, a crowd sourced online network for teachers to share their curriculum with each other, and a video contest on Facebook built around our Market Day experience that is going very well (hat tip to Lindsay!). The point of most of this innovation is to increase productivity and get more from less. Realize, though, that all of this technology is worthless without real human beings to use it. Econ Check: I think that’s called a network externality. 

For the last two and a half years I have been working with entrepreneurship students and teachers in my role of Program Manager for YE. Thinking back on the thousands of interactions that have taken place, I realized that very seldom does it directly involve technology. Normally my approach is to engage them in conversation with the goal of helping them understand their comparative advantage. It truly is an ongoing process of experimental discovery. This “in the moment” trial and error process has evolved in so many ways with varying degrees of success.

In my humble opinion, the most successful innovation in working with entrepreneurship students has to do with helping them define their vision of success before doing anything else. That’s right, “begin with the end in mind”, as Steven Covey so eloquently put it. The twist I put on this, however, is that I don’t tell them that is what I am doing. I just ask, “So, what does success look like?” Or, my favorite, “How much money do you want to make?” The last one works really well when planning for Market Day.

In economic terms, scarcity inherently means that we can’t have everything we want. Blending this with a bit of spirituality, I posit that we are all “suffering at the margin”. Ludwig Von Mises said that it is our dissatisfaction that drives every decision as we seek to reduce our own disequilibrium. Perhaps the point that this 7^th grader was making was that technology may not be the cure, the answer, or the path to satisfaction. She was hinting at her own view of the future and looking for clues that help her believe in it.

As we embrace the productivity of innovative technology, let’s not discard humanity. In embracing change, let’s reduce scarcity without increasing complications. Entrepreneurs create value for society by using innovation to solve problems and make life better. Einstein was right, “Everything should be as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.” 

-Jon Bachura