Innovation as Evolution

Orgel's Second Rule:

Evolution is cleverer than you are.

Eric Beinhocker, Brian Arthur, Andy Hargadon, and others are contributing to a school of inquiry that suggests that innovation is an evolutionary process, not just like evolution.    Over the last couple of months, I've been trying to absorb the implications of the difference between evolution as metaphor and evolution as a valid model of innovation, which, among other things, may challenge our assumptions regarding the meaning of "invention" and calls into question the effective adaptive capacity of incumbents.  My understanding is very much a work-in-process, which I propose to share in a sequence of posts:

• Physical technologies and fitness landscapes
  
• Deductive tinkering and the evolutionary algorithm
  
• Business models as the co-evolutionary product of physical and social technologies
  
• The players: originators, entrepreneurs, incumbents, and technology brokers
  
• Building adaptive capacity

I'm looking forward to discovering where the process may take us.