#onlyness

Those of us who’ve been otherized actually hold the keys to the breakthroughs the world so desperately needs. That’s not an overstatement. Karim R. Lakhani, a Harvard-based open innovation professor, and Lars Bo Jeppesen, of the Copenhagen Business School, did some research, opening up 166 previously-unsolved scientific problems from the research laboratories of 26 firms to over 80,000 independent scientists around the world. The new players were able to solve one-third of the problems that the research laboratories were unable to solve internally. One-third. Those are new solutions that were previously non-existent. And who were these creative innovators? The research described that “social marginality” played an important role in explaining individual success. Nearly 100 percent of the solution creators came from women and other underseen groups, what the researchers described by the comparative language of “left field,” but we could (and would and should) call onlyness. Because we recognize the value of that distinct spot in the world in which each of us stands.