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But credentials are not necessary for a BCIMIN. Only the impedance mismatch between the depth of knowledge and experience being brought to bear on the work, and the seemingly “beneath them” level of hands-on-work and mucking about at the tool level.
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I’ve seen credentialed, decorated types literally turn up their noses with “this is contractor/intern/newbie grunt work”. When a respected, high-reputation person says something like that, I immediately flip the bozobit and look skeptically at their supposed great reputation.
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Invariably I find they’ve been doing shallow, dull work aimed at racking up institutional merit points (number of papers/patents, awards etc). They are the Paris Hiltons of innovation. Famous for being famous. A resume stuffed with everything except blue-collar innovation.
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Blue-collar innovators are “new medium pilot plant” producers. Their workspaces/tooling are inbetween basic research labs and scaled production. They produce in small batches not because they have artisan sensibilities but because they’re pushing the scaling limits of new media.
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BCIMINs are the most stimulating and energizing place for most smart, creative, imaginative, and growth-oriented people to participate in. It’s not the rare lightning-strike regime that creates pioneers, nor is it the predictable world of institutions built around stable tools.
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I’d guess 1% of the population will end up as pioneers, 9% as blue-collar innovators, and 90% as mature-institution normies. Of that 90%, a third to half (so 30-45% of total) will be bullshit workers, predators and parasites at maturity. Free riders of one sort or the other.
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This is fine. I approve of non-producing free riders right up to the point that kills the host process of wealth creation. It’s only good wealth if it produces a surplus, and somebody has to consume it. Somebody has to eat all that cake.
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For fun fictional portraits of a BCIMIN era, try Terry Pratchett’s Raising Steam or HBO’s Deadwood. Let’s finish with some subtle takeaways.
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1. Innovation watchers often uncritically fetishize either credentialed expertise or unqualified blue-collar doerism. Nope. BCIMINs run on expertise (credentialed or not) *slumming at blue-collar levels*. Get this wrong and you’ll end up either academic posturing or JohnHenryism.
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2. The 90% normies often assume the 1% pioneers are the only ones who matter and form “scenes” of personality cults around them. The 9% BCIMIN types are often viewed with suspicion and become targets of societal policing. This never works. They just turn to crime etc.
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3. Unlike the 1%, who have a love-hate tortured relationship with fame and the attention of the 90%, the 9% neither attract, nor crave the spotlight. But they will not toe the lines or conform to societal norms or social proof either. They’ll tolerate some spotlight as a burden.
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4. They aren’t a community. They are a network of competing/cooperating individuals stealing tricks from each other. Ideas diffuse slowly through the BCIMIN, as each skeptically tests tricks before adopting. It’s not viral meme floods. It’s a slow network with fad defenses.
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All this is fairly well-known and uncontroversial to students of innovation history. But people who enter BCIMINs attracted by 1% personality cults or with an uncritical fetish for either credentials or blue-collarism invariably don’t last. They crash and burn as scenesters.
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