The Myth of Geocentric Creativity

I came across a copy of the September 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review a few weeks ago, and have had it in the pickup for emergency reading. I'd never read the magazine before, probably because it is almost never seen in Trinidad, so despite the exotic price of TT $149.99 (US $23) I picked it up. It's always good to read what others are writing, and reading broadly is something I do as a reflex.

Within the magazine were some interesting articles, yet the one that bothered me the most was Don't Try This Offshore (HBR Case Study and Commentary). I couldn't quite put my finger on why - the article is well written, funny and a little controversial for American businesses. I re-read it, as well as the commentary, and re-read it again. I thought about it for days. Then it struck me: the premise of the article is what disturbed me.

To summarize the article in one paragraph, the article is about a fictional business in the United States - 'management-metaphor boutique Serendipity Associates (SA)' - is suddenly challenged by a competitor with a lower price tag, and that lower price tag is linked to outsourcing creative work. This comes as a surprise in the story to Serendipity Associates. And that, you see, is what I found disturbing. That people even thought in this way - that creativity is geocentric or, in the Internet era, business-centric. Is this the way that people really think? That an accident of geography or hiring creates the perfect creative business? I don't think like that, but the article's premise clearly demonstrates that at least some people think like that.

I've traveled a lot. I know that there are creative people all over the world - I gravitate to them. These are the people who I hang out with - the people who can keep up with turn of phrase, who come up with good hacks (simple solutions to complex problems). I stay out of the corporate-like Starbucks coffee shops and seek out the real coffee shops, filled with the pretenders that pad the diamonds of creativity. Even as I dig into agriculture, I find farmers who, too, are creative. Heck, I live in Trinidad and Tobago, where turn of phrase was, at least at one time¹, a respected part of culture - where Calypso produced so much tongue in cheek that one could almost choke on it.

Unsilicon Unvalley

No, no, the premise of the article isn't that creative people aren't all over the world. But it is that creative people don't profit unless they get to certain world stages. For the geek, the Mecca has been seen as Silicon Valley over the last 30 years. In fact, so many people seem to think that Silicon Valley is the center of the Universe that at any time I expect the Pope to withdraw the Roman Catholic Church apology to Galileo Galilei and to say that, yeah verily, the center of the Universe is Silicon Valley, followed by a Hollywood rendition of the same, shamelessly ripped off from Isaac Asimov: I, Pope.

My distress is worth considering. I've done my share of creative geekery and I've not been to Silicon Valley. My visits to California have not left me thinking that the place is better than anywhere else - indeed, the opposite is actually true. And yet a lot has come out of Silicon Valley. Some of it has been kind of good. Most of it has not been that good. Seriously.

Silicon Valley eats itself. In a conversation at the FLOS Caribbean conference in 2003, I recall that one of my fellow presenters pointed out that though there are lots of failures in Silicon Valley, every failure's employees tend to be hired by the next startup in Silicon Valley. In doing this, a geocentric collective intelligence is maintained and cultivated. But that same geocentrism also comes with socioeconomic-centrism, sociopolitical-centrism, and a very odd infatuation with neon and pastel colors. There are resident Gods who wander Silicon Valley and talk about their Ideas. The worshippers of the Gods design things, and these days they largely send off to other parts of the world to have the things made. If there is a sacrifice that these Gods require, it may be the world-view of their followers.

And, the Gods of Silicon Valley may think, all is well. 'We design it, they make it.' And that's all well and good, but one has to truly ponder why it is that creative people around the world haven't been busy designing and manufacturing their own things. The most simple answer is that they don't have what Silicon Valley has: venture capital. That's changing, but from what I've been noting it seems that around the world people are trying to avoid venture capital and go it on their own - an observation which says more about me than the world, but let's think about it. Stoic building of other things for self-titled creative people builds financial and social capital that allows the growth of creative equity.

But it isn't just that. There are other things that make Silicon Valley successful - in a nutshell, it almost all falls under infrastructure. The postal system, roads, electricity, communication (phone and otherwise), etc. Silicon Valley has long had an advantage in infrastructure as well - but that is changing because the world, despite itself, is catching up.

Internet access alone is growing at about 2-3% per year, and I believe that when it hits 33% it will snowball. In a commentary on the article, Richard Phelps wrote:

...Overall, the offshoring of knowledge is growing at a startling 39% annually, according to statistics compiled by Evalueserve, and is projected to engange an estimated 390,000 professionals by 2011.

Of course, these are outsourcing statistics. These are not numbers indicating competitors. How long will it take India to write it's own operating system²? And who best knows a local market? A local business. If we consider global internet penetration is going up 2-3% annually and offshoring of knowledge is growing at 39% annually, and that infrastructure is being built all over the world (consider India's Golden Quatilateral superhighway(s))- some places with distinct advantages such as tax breaks, etc. - where do you think future businesses will prosper? And will they be based out of the United States?

Quite a few of my friends and I have speculated on this over the last 10 years. I started thinking about it when, while I was at Honeywell, my manager spoke to me about outsourcing (circa 1997) software projects to India. My response would be that they would be difficult to manage and that we were writing specific software for equipment that was still being designed, at great cost. I didn't think that it would work, and I think history has proven me right in that particular circumstance - but what if the hardware were being produced where the software was, where the cost of living is lower?

The premise of the article, again, is what disturbs me. The future may well not be in the United States, the products and services may not be sent provided by American companies. People around the world have figured that out, and while the article provides a reasonable first step toward this happening - with American businesses sending more creative work overseas - it is only a first step in a world that is accelerating toward homogeneity of products and services. Just as the Japanese put Detroit on notice, the globe is putting Silicon Valley on notice. To make matters even more interesting, the notion of geocentrism remains though people continue to (improperly) say that the world is getting more flat.

The world isn't getting flat. It's just that opportunities are becoming more evenly distributed, despite the world and it's own bureaucracies. I wonder what twists the article would have taken if the competition of Serendipity Associates had competition from a group of true calypsonians in Trinidad as well as Monty Python (to mention a few).

And now, for something completely different. . .

¹Perhaps I am getting old, but this particular art form seems to have devolved into 'wave your hand in de air' sound bytes. David Rudder, where are you and why have you left us in mediocrity?
² India, as well as Russia and China, don't have to. In fact, no nation has to. GNU/Linux and other open source projects which have global participation have lowered the entry requirements for just about any software business.