Metaphors We Create By (Cont.)

3-D Printed Confection

Why don’t we innovate something new?

How many marketing campaigns have used the word “innovation”? It must be in the millions. Typically, they all redound to very conservative cookie-cutter ideas. Many of the campaigns tout “creative confidence”, that if taken literally, will entail the eccentric: creative ideas are understood as being artistically experimental. Considering all the eccentric possibilities is essential in the sense that they exert an influence on those ideas that are rising to the top, or being winnowed (funneled down) in the other direction. (This is an example of how “top/bottom” and “rise/fall” metaphors can be harmful, even if they are interchangeable, and tend to fall in the same patterns as creative/innovative. In business, the weird ideas pejoratively “fall” to the bottom, when in fact if they are ultimately useful, should be the “pearls”. The ladder metaphor is baked-in-the-cake of the business world: it “rises” (as “leavened” in baking).