A ‘technology push innovation’ is when you invent something and then hope people will want it. A ‘technology pull innovation’ is first figuring out what people want and then trying to invent it. The same concepts can be applied to the provision of investment services.
Tim Harford, the renowned economist, speaks of technology pull innovations in his recent podcast where he discusses the ‘adjacent possible’. The ‘adjacent possible’ is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the
edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself. He quotes Sir Clive Sinclair, himself an innovator who some might argue was ahead of his time, who notes that the ‘adjacent possible’ “captures both the limits and the creative potential of change and innovation.”
Link to original article