Positive deviance and the IPD

We all know that organisations and institutions impose barriers to innovation. The larger they are, the more rules they tend to generate. This is because by nature large organisations are conservative and there is a perceived need to protect the status quo and maintain order. But this isn't always good news for creativity and innovation. James Clay once called such enforcing agencies 'Innovation Prevention Departments', and claimed that every institution has one. I think he's right. Trying to innovate in such circumstances, especially when there is an IPD saying 'that's against the rules', 'it can't be done' or 'it's too expensive' can be hard going, but innovation is never impossible. I was interviewed at the Learning Technologies conference, about my views on innovation, organisational constraints and positive deviance. The interview was actually recorded downstairs in the Learning without Frontiers dome zone, which explains the theatrical lighting. Above is the video of the interview in full (duration 90 seconds).

Interview by Martin Couzins


Positive deviance and the IPD by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.