We know that there is a sustainable innovation and in-sustainable innovation.
But we have to understand that un-sustainable innovation today is also to a large extent an Intelligent-but-not-unsustainable-innovation (Intelligent-but-not-so-smart innovation) advertised as Smart product capable of providing super User performance.
It is first of all necessary to remember that Sustainability means:
satisfying people’s needs
without creating significant “collateral damage”.
In a moment of change like the current one, in which there is beginning to be an attention to the real sustainability of the products, there are products that are advertised as highly innovative products able to guarantee spectacular performances; which are, however, produced at (high) risk.
<see Disruptive innovation: religion, scam or necessity for those who want to stay in the market? >
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The fact is that today we are in a Market phase in which Trend that nobody can control is spontaneously developing.
One of these trends is the
“TRANSPARENCY”:
the “Web media” spread information
that the Market is not able to intercept,
so the problems are quickly known to the public.
Note that this trend has already led to failure one of the most consolidated “Market Systems” in history, that of the Soviet Union.
In this case, Glasnost was defined as “any process of justice or governance, being conducted in the open” (Wikipedia)
Glasnost developed significantly in East Germany (a “province” of the Soviet Union) due to the possibility of using Western “free” media that could not be obscured.
In this way the citizens of East Germany realized that their way of life had a much better alternative in the Western world.
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Today, in fact, a process of transparentization is underway in which a flow of information spontaneously develops thanks to the “free media” with which problems that once remained hidden from the general public come come into the open.
This occurs significantly in the case of political elections, for those at risk candidates are defeated with media weapons.
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In this “transparency” dimension, products that potentially produce significant collateral damage are at high risk.
<see A new Value proposition: the problem of ethical (ideological) values° >
The case of the headphones that erase the noise
The headphones that erase environmental noise are a significant case of intelligent-but-not-so-smart innovation (not-sustainable-innovation).
The criticality of headphones is known: people walking on the street are hit by cars or public transport because these devices do not allow the User to hear environmental noises.
An “improvement” in the performance of headphones
in this direction
seems to be in reality a serious deterioration of the situation
for the Users
(and a own-goal for the producers).
