The innovation imperative requires constant re-affirmation- voting negative interrupts this system of subject formation

(Alf, InnovationandTech@Denmark, Images, Imperatives, and Ideology in the Innovation IndustryIn Debating Innovation: Perspectives and Paradoxes of an Idealized Concept ed. Rehn and Ortenblad)

An example might be fruitful here. I am, in addition to being a profes sor of innovation, design, and management, also a relatively popular speaker, particularly on the topics of creativity and innovation. I have over the last two decades given many academic lectures, presentations, and keynotes on these issues, but to this comes the fact that I have given more than 1000 keynotes for professional audiences, at both internal events for employees and management, and external events with more mixed audiences. The sizes of audiences have varied widely, from as few as a dozen to more than 20,000 people, with a few hundred to a thousand people being the most common audience size. My task at these events tends to be threefold. One, while clients rarely use such terms, part of the expectation for a speaker is to deliver “management entertainment,” namely statements and stories about management issues that are deliv ered in a way that amuse and entertain the audience. This can mean jokes and stories that engender laughter, but also more wry remarks and witti cisms, as well as material that is more dramatic or “feel-good” in scope. In other words, packaging and delivery matter. Two, clients expect some thing that they at least feel to be “practical,” that is, things that at least tentatively can be deployed in practice. This doesn’t necessarily mean that one needs to give direct, actionable advice, but can also be achieved by discussing what kind of matters should be kept in mind in certain situa tions, or even giving metaphorical advice (“Who in your organization is like Person-In-Anecdote-Just-Told, and are you supporting them?”). The third task is something of a meta-task, namely to give the audience termi nology, metaphors, and anecdotes with which to discuss similar issues in their own organizations. These three levels all point to a different level of active audience engagement. In my experience, the first level (entertainment) is the least active. People do engage by laughing and applauding and can at times make references back to the joke or the story. When I talk to audiences after a keynote, they may thank me for having presented innovation in an amus ing manner or gotten them to laugh about their creative shortcomings, but the activity stops there. There is, to use Hall’s (1973) terminology, not that much to decode here. The second level (practice) is, maybe somewhat surprisingly, not much more active. Again, audiences may react in a positive way here, but this does not necessarily lead to anything more than an acknowledgement of a piece of advice being potentially helpful or meaningful. Again, seeing as most people do not make direct innovation decisions in their day-to-day life, the “practical” elements remain highly abstract to most people; exhortations one can agree on, but practical in theory rather than in practice. It is on the third, discursive level where the real engagement emerges. What I’ve learnt as an innova tion speaker is that the highest level of audience engagement happens on a level where they can say “You just said what I’ve always been thinking, but couldn’t put in words,” a sentence I by now have heard innumerable times. With a few, basic rhetorical tricks, such as condemning innovation clichés (in a manner that might itself be turning into a cliché), I can make people feel as if they are “ahead of the curve” and to thus feel like innova tors, even when they’re yet to innovate. Audience activity in this sphere can thus be seen as seeing instances such as an innovation keynote as a possibility to craft one’s identity, seeking affirmation in what is seen as a legitimate agent of innovation (my title, which is “professor of innovation, design, and management” bestows me with almost immedi ate legitimacy in this regard). The importance here lies in the fact that imperatives only work if there is a predisposition to follow such, particularly if more forcible regimes of power aren’t available. In a totalitarian dictatorship one might of course simply force the populace to accept the innovation imperative, by decree and supported by threats of violence, but in most contexts innovation isn’t this forcefully supported. Instead we might say that it is established by relentless repetition, and in part this is achieved by allowing the term to be subjected to what I have elsewhere referred to as “epistemological emptying” (Rehn 2018). What this means is that the tendency in the innovation industry to allow more and more things to be referred to with the moniker “innovation” isn’t an accident, but rather a strategy. By not engaging critically with the way in which our society keeps calling any- and everything innovation, not only does the field then manage to appear more and more important, it also makes the innovation imperative easier to uphold. It should not be difficult to see how this is achieved: First, refer to a few, universally accepted positive developments (antibiotics, mobile phones, the Internet) as innovations. Second, extend this assignation to involve more and more things. Third, use the bolstered legitimacy to claim that innovation is no longer a minor issue, but a major one. Four, repeat incessantly. As innovation is turned into a term that can describe or associated with most things that are seen as positive or good, and the lack thereof associated with torpor, decay, conservatism, and bankruptcies, most people will simply accept this as the state of affairs and thus become primed/programmed to react in a positive manner to a repetition of the innovation imperative. Succinctly put, this means that the innovation industry and the inno vation imperative are both part of something larger, something that can be queried not only for understanding the manner in which innovation is discussed in our age, but also to why critical engagements with innovation are necessary—and that larger phenomenon is innovation as an ideology.