Surprise in Innovation

Correspondent Michael Schrage in the  HBR Blog.  He talks reactive and proactive surprise.  Ans how the difference can pay big dividends.  With the example of DARPA, a group I worked with in the 70s.   " ... Anticipating and enabling "technological surprise" has become even more challenging, DARPA director Arati Prabhakar recently told an MIT audience, because more people in more places have more access to more technology that ever before. Surprises can come from anywhere. In an era of greater global trade, knowledge transfer and transparency, Prabhakar unsurprisingly reports DARPA's core value proposition demands disproportionately greater imagination and ingenuity. Predictability breeds complacency. Predictability is DARPA's cultural, technical and organizational enemy. ..."