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Innovation paradox: Difference between revisions
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By the nineties, the office manager’s refrain “''we don’t pay lawyers to type, son''” had lost its force. We had terminals on our desks, next to the executive model ''Dictaphone{{tm}}''. By the millennium, we didn’t even need a business case ''to get the internet''. | By the nineties, the office manager’s refrain “''we don’t pay lawyers to type, son''” had lost its force. We had terminals on our desks, next to the executive model ''Dictaphone{{tm}}''. By the millennium, we didn’t even need a business case ''to get the internet''. | ||
Suddenly, we could spawn docs, tweak clauses, shove in [[rider|riders]] — ''endlessly'' futz around with words. Generating and sending documents was free and instantaneous. It was like the sorcerer’s apprentice. {{author|Stanley Fish}}even wrote a [[How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One - Book Review|book]] about it. | Suddenly, we could spawn docs, tweak clauses, shove in [[rider|riders]] — ''endlessly'' futz around with words. Generating and sending documents was free and instantaneous. It was like the sorcerer’s apprentice. {{author|Stanley Fish}} even wrote a [[How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One - Book Review|book]] about it. | ||
Suddenly | Suddenly [[contract]]s were concluded in a flash, right? | ||
Wrong. Far from accelerating | Wrong. | ||
Far from ''accelerating'' [[negotiation]]s, [[technology]] gave us free rein to indulge our yen for pedantry. [[Cross acceleration|''Cross''-acceleration]], if you like. Negotiations got longer. The issues got more prolix. We argued about trifles because we ''could''. We danced on the head of a pin, because we ''could''. | |||
And technology lowered the bar: certain contracts, which previously could not justify their own existence, let alone human negotiation, could now be thrashed out in infinite, infinitesimals detail. We argued about not just trifles, but pavlovas, puddings, flans, flummeries and even fricking self-saucing ''sponges''. '''Because we could'''. | And technology lowered the bar: certain contracts, which previously could not justify their own existence, let alone human negotiation, could now be thrashed out in infinite, infinitesimals detail. We argued about not just trifles, but pavlovas, puddings, flans, flummeries and even fricking self-saucing ''sponges''. '''Because we could'''. | ||