Third, related to the earlier two points, innovations increase the effectiveness of individuals and organizations. By effectiveness, we mean how well actions of an individual or organization lead to a desired outcome. If an individual has to do a lot of work to produce only a small amount of a desired outcome, the effectiveness of that individual’s actions is low. Conversely, if an individual has to do minimal work to produce a large amount of a desired outcome, the effectiveness of that individual’s actions is high.
Innovations can make existing ways of doing activities more effective and thus either more profitable or enriching for the participants. Sometimes the art of being a systems innovator is not necessarily about discovering something completely new, but instead is about “refining” some processes exist and making these processes better and more effective. The Internet is full of examples where existing ideas where translated into the digital world and made more effective. Email allows individuals to send electronic messages to each other and receive them in much faster time than it would take to deliver a hand-written message. Computers allow individuals to compose and edit documents electronically using a word processing program in ways that are much more effective than retyping the document numerous times and changing revisions manually.
Individual improvements in effectiveness can also translate into organizational effectiveness. If a team of people discovers an innovative way of rearranging how they work together, this innovation may translate into faster results or better outcomes for the team. For information systems, innovators are often striving to make not only the system work better and more effectively – but also the organizations of people who interact with the technology also work better and more effectively.
No human system is completely effective and all of our systems have the potential to be improved. As systems innovator, your mission is to seek ways of increasing individual and organizational effectiveness. You want to discover innovations that require the minimal amount of work to produce the largest amount of a desired outcome. Challenge the unknown, not feasible, or impossible.
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