Swamped with innovation

I’m jumping on the Thackara bandwagon:

We’re swamped by innovation, but starved of meaning. So what steps should we take, and in which order? […] Where there are gaps, we can invent stuff. But let’s ease up on inventing for it’s own sake: it delivers as much smoke, as solutions.

Back in my gung-ho-pulling-all-nighters-at-yet-another-start-up days, innovation for innovation’s sake was the rule. Yeah sure I thought I was building the next big thing but in retrospect I was just pursuing some folly while dipping my hand in the babbling VC creek. Pretty common those days.

My dissatisfaction eventually became unbearable and many years ago I decided to phase out the conversations with machines and bring in the humans! But as Peterme mentions (and I’m paraphrasing) it’s hard to stop “fetishizing the interesting.”

I’m looking forward to 2007; it’ll be a good year filled with meaning, learning and helping. And maybe some nice Ajax-y Design Innovation Workflow Social Networks with Microformats. Damn it I’m fetishizing already.