Failing to Disrupt

The success of digital experiences is handicapped by a degree of production. Measuring clicks, time on screen, in-app purchases, or new signups are all metrics bound by an unyielding dimension of scale. This obsession with scale is undoubtedly rooted in the assembly-line, factory-like mentality of capital-focused societies and then further fetishized by the hyper output and fast-failure practices of startup culture leaking everywhere. Undoubtedly, some organizations face challenges related to the pre-production mindset, which radically might impact our society. However, most are thriving within a version-controlled domain.

Version control assumes the following:

1. a target goal is set and is unlikely to fundamentally change
2. changes are incremental
3. logs in the version control map these incremental changes towards the target goal
4. only those subscribing to the existing framework or taxonomy can make or approve these incremental changes
5. production has a lifecycle: beginning, middle, and end

These five assumptions come with functional affordances of scale. Often scale is associated to innovation subsequently an effort to disrupt—to create a paradigm shift.

Consider the following:

• Has techno-solutionism within the past few decades ushered new paradigms of industry?
• What about a dogmatic conversation on vocabulary and vernacular?
• When has gatekeeping—in the form of bureaucracy or certification—stifled innovation?
• How has focus on scale been combative against profound change?

The rigidity of version control can't unlock new ways of thinking. Our flexibility in mental models allows us to learn and survive. When applied to a vastly more complex system, why would that rigidity be of any benefit related to learning? Our models indeed abstract some information that semantically can be reduced with a common language; however, the model is merely a map of the landscape, not the terrain itself. The ability to construct living ideas from flexible models might not scale in a production sense but be the transformative shift needed to welcome new forms of concepts and ideas.