In Class 3, we talked about how technological innovation cannot be a suitable, long-term, workable solution, if the only thing we make sure of is that a narrow piece of technology is working. In class, exoskeletons really fascinated a particular student (ok, many people, including me); however we all soon realized that even if the exoskeleton itself worked, there were other technological hurdles to overcome…and that’s just the technological piece of the conversation. This is where the invention piece is just one piece of the puzzle. If the Tesla only innovated on the car itself, but not on the infrastructure of charging stations…or if the PS4 came out but no games were created for it, or if you have an amazing e-commerce site, but there’s no wi-fi around at all…well, it doesn’t solve anything. In short, if you envision a Venn Diagram, infrastructure, content, and people had to all be taken into consideration for the intersection to be a viable solution.
Our conversation turned to the activities that Sanibel, my low-vision 4 year old, enjoys. That includes basketball. Since many students in the class play basketball, we understood the basics of playing basketball, and had a discussion about what problems Sanibel will have (no peripheral vision, funhouse mirror images, among many other issues) when playing basketball. Right now, she’s quite good at dribbling for a 4 year old, regardless of vision. But playing basketball involves more than just dribbling. We had no shortage of possible solutions, as that’s one of the most enjoyable parts of brainstorming…coming up with cool solutions. Hand after hand was raised, offering another interesting way to handle the problem. Since the students’ solutions also require them to leverage Bose’s Products , including their Open Ear Technology, audio footnotes came into the discussion.
In Andrew’s blog about Class 3 he wrote towards the end, “In a conversation where we brainstormed the challenges of playing basketball with a visual impairment and ideated potential solutions, one student noted that giving a device to someone that improves their spatial awareness and helps them navigate the court could potentially put that player at an advantage, despite their visual impairment.”
“That student” that Andrew mentioned, was my 11 year old son, Aidan – oldest brother to Sanibel.
The reason that his comment struck me so much, is that Aidan was pointing out a potential unintended consequence of innovation. To another stakeholder outside of the intended user (Sanibel). Why am I so amazed? It’s not because everything that comes out of my son’s mouth is brilliant, even though he is really smart. It’s because I find that so few people – regardless of age – rarely ever think about what innovation can mean for other stakeholders…and even fewer about the potential negative consequences. Aidan realized that, in the game of basketball, there’s an established set of processes and protocols. In the laser-driven focus to even out the playing field for Sanibel, we may be proposing solutions that can give her an unfair advantage over the other players.
There’s almost always a legacy system in place that innovation must jive with…this could be a legacy technology infrastructure (not all, but many people will think about this)…there are legacy people and legacy culture…there are legacies to the way things are done. Whether you choose to go with the grain, or against the grain…sometimes it’s a matter of user habits. Sometimes it can be breaking a rule. Sometimes it can cause unwanted side effects. Sometimes it can cause new innovation for the better, and sometimes it can cause new innovation for the worse. What may be started with good intention for the sake of being eco-friendly, may end up becoming a sanitation hazard, depending on the context and circumstance.
Usually I like to encourage divergent thinking in free-flow form, before introducing constraints…but because Aidan brought up that point, it allowed me to hammer in the point that it’s not just the technical feasibility of audio footnotes (and we don’t know yet the details to any of the technical feasibility yet, because those are things we need to build and test too).
However, does Aidan’s point then deem the whole audio footnotes solution during basketball useless? Not at all.
Aidan brought up a fantastic point about whether getting fed data about where to go next is considered cheating…and Jayme, one of the mentors who works at Bose Labs, mentioned that that’s a concern in the NFL too. This is a very important point. However, this should not be a barrier to a solution for basketball for Sanibel, because there’s always multiple angles to be thinking about – including context and persona, such as:
1) Sanibel is not playing for the NBA (yet). She’s not even playing on a school league. Does this change the situation (and thus solution), and in what way? School leagues start in 1st grade (which is 2 years away for her). She’s just learning right now. Different feelings about our discussion in class now? Maybe?
2) Sanibel may just want to play basketball at home with her brothers and friends, and not on a league with peers. Different narrative now from even the prior situation in bullet #1.
3) In class, the data that was being fed to Sanibel was “go left”, “shoot”, “right then forward”, …or etc. Does that have to be the data for this solution? What other types of data can technology help Sanibel with, that can help her play a game of basketball (even when she’s older) that’s critical…but doesn’t tell her where to go, but maybe rather where not to go…because there’s an obstacle in the way? What about which peers are her teammates vs opponents? Or does that open up more discussion of fairness? Maybe? Sometimes? Maybe in some cases, those that she’s playing with may not care. Some of these may not even be technological feasible, as another student pointed out that some of these calculations have to happen really, really fast.
The conversation may seem somewhat circular, but it’s not. Rather, each new technical solution, each new type of content/data that’s being fed, each new narrative of who Sanibel is playing with, and each new phase of how old Sanibel is and how good of a player she is, can alter what the final solution is.
If it were so easy, then more people would be doing it. But then again, if it were easy, it wouldn’t be so fun and interesting.
Aidan is so excited to be part of this year’s L3 Innovation Challenge. He’s barely old enough to participate. But from the moment he and Sanibel met a little over a year ago when we went overseas to meet her and bring her home to us, the two of them had an instant connection. Aidan so desperately wants to see innovation happen so that it can help her have access to some of the same experiences other kids have. He’s even more excited about the prospect of being one of the ones that helps devise assistive technologies for his own sister. Just a few more weeks left of the 2019 L3 Innovation Challenge. Demo Day and judging will take place on November 13th at LabCentral with amazing judges (and key stakeholders) from the likes of Boston Children’s Hospital, Bose Labs, and LabCentral.