Future Here Now: Elitism Kills Innovation

Flashback

Continuing the series of revisiting some of my older published work. This is a newer piece, but pre-2020. Back then, inclusion was important, but privileged people like me weren’t thinking about how many barriers we were throwing up against inclusion, sometimes inadvertently.

Inclusion has become more central to our lexicon, but we haven’t gotten as much better at it as we should have. And as this piece argues, that’s not only a moral failing, but an blow to economic dynamism that we increasingly can’t afford.

This piece is from The Local Economy Revolution Has Arrived: What’s Changed and How You Can Help. Learn more about how to get your own copy here, here or here. An earlier version appeared in Everybody Innovates Here: Accelerating Innovation and Entrepreneurship Across Your Entire Community. Stay tuned - an updated version of that book should be coming later this year.

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Most innovation-focused organizations and businesses don’t think of themselves as elitist or exclusionary.  Most of them make a point of saying that they are open to everyone, and more and more are actively trying to recruit diverse members (especially the organizations that have a tech focus, since that industry has received so much bad press for hiring predominantly white and male).  

But claiming inclusivity and offering an inclusion-supporting experience are not the same thing.