A Study in Innovation

Wired has a very entertaining article about MySpace in its November edition.  In part it tells the story of Hawthorne Heights, a band that found its fan base through MySpace.  The article talks about the evolution of the service but falls short of discussing why this is such an innovation.

First off which is the innovation - the site or the band and why?  I think both qualify and for good reason.  The site is innovative because it developed new technology to meet an old challenge of connecting people and allowing them to build community.  Tom Anderson dreamed to take the best parts of his favorite social networking sites and combine them into MySpace.  The Band is innovative for using the new MySpace technology to get in touch and market their music to fans.  Hawthorne Heights’s Eron Bucciarelli was driven to invention out of necessity - a limited budget and need to develop relationships with a mass amount of people. Their approach to the challenge was to repurpose a system to meet their needs. 

The one thing I do not like about the article is that it reinforces the 'Great Man Theory' that both Andrew Hargadon and I detest. The initial innovative spark probably came from individuals like Tom Eron, but it took a group to make the innovation materialize. Remember that Edison had a full compliment of scientists working with him to invent the light bulb.