The Natural and Beautiful Tension Between Innovation and Standards

On the one hand, standards can drive an entire industry forward on a common basis and offer market economies of scale. Where would we be without common standards on the web or agreed audio andvideo standards or dedicated slices of spectrum that can be used globally with our mobile phones?

Standards are like four lane motorways down which lots of users can drive and benefit. Of course, before that motorway is built, someone has to do the initial trailblazing. But after the motorway is built, how do we keep innovation thriving and leverage an existing foundation to develop a new generation of standards from which we can all benefit? How do we find the balance between, on the one hand, stability and, on the other hand, constant innovation?

The answer may be found in a 45 year old biological theory that may offer a paradigm helping us to understand the symbiotic interplay of standards and innovation. The theories are from the biologist Stuart Kauffman who has studied the origin of life and behaviour of molecular self-organization. Kauffman argues that complex systems spontaneously self-organize into entities that are far more than the sum of their parts (which is also a key topic in the emerging discipline of network science).

Specifically, Kaufman argues that biological and other types of networks tend to both self-organize and attempt to expand into what he calls “the adjacent possible” to increase the diversity of what can happen next. He notes that if they try to expand too fast, they destroy their own internal organization. And if they try too slowly, they fail to adapt. In other words, there may be a natural law that this expansion happens only as fast as they can get away with it.

How does this relate to standards? Well, if Kaufmann’s law of the adjacent possible is a reasonable paradigm to accept, it makes it easier to understand that there can be little innovation without standards nor can there be standards without innovation. Standards and innovation are intertwined in a symbiotic relationship. The trick is figuring out how to innovateas fast as we can get away with it.

On that topic, the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) recently  created a Focus Group entitled Bridging the Gap: From Innovation to Standards. I’m sure they’ll be exploring some of these issues at their first meeting to be held 19-21 March 2012 at ITU. The meeting includes a workshop on ICT Innovations, particularly as it relates to what is happening in developing countries. It’s an open workshop so do consider participating and hear about some of the amazing innovations taking place in developing countries in the ICT space.