Gianlorenzo Bernini's Passion for Innovation

Many of us in the Information Technology field are driven by a passionate obsession for innovation.  We experience technology transforming our lives.   Most of us are the invisible hands behind the realization of many of the new innovations that have truly changed not only our lives but also the way the world is communicating and living in and out of cyberspace.  I have not blogged in a while as I have found myself traveling into the past instead of the future in search of inspiration for innovation.  I find myself traveling in the past to glean how others in a world with no computers managed to change the world around them.   I wonder what was their secret! how did they manage without super computers, no Internet, no digital communication, skype, or facebook!  I also try to find what is in common between those who changed the past and those who are changing the present and future.  

I came across Gianlorenzo Bernini.  Many of you I am sure are familiar with his stunning work.  Bernini's Apollo and Daphne (1622 - 1625), Rape of Proserpine (1621 - 1622), David (1623 - 1624), and Ecstasy of St Theresa (1647 - 1652) all have one thing in common: an artist's passion for unfathomable innovation! Bernini did not only have a passion for innovation but also he had a streak for breaking the barriers of limitations.  His work is a snap shot of a moment in time where marble moves in a motion that brings passion to life.  A living stone speaks to us in a compellingly moving emotion captured in a snapshot.  The hands of Apollo sinking into Proserpine's thighs, St Theresa's scandalously partly opened lips,  and Daphne's hands turning to leaves in thin air are timeless testaments of his passion for innovation.  

Innovation is many things.  Bernini teaches us it is to think the unthinkable, to break the unbreakable, to dare the impossible and to demonstrate excellence.  Bernini proves to us in every line and motion in his works that innovation is unbridled passion for excellence.   Innovation is not simply solving problems in rational introspection at a measured pace.  It is the human ability to break new frontiers, to change the way things have been done for so many long years, to solve problems in completely different and new ways, and to shatter the barriers of limitation. 

I fear most often that the technologists of tomorrow have been castrated by the mundane and dull commercialization of IT.  I believe in IT that is daring, passionate, and willing to shatter the trite delegation of IT as something that does not matter or something that can be bought as a commodity.  Sure! Commodity art is all around with its dull and worn out ability to inspire to challenge our senses.  I dream of a new generation in IT that will bring forward the dare and confidence in our capabilities.  For those organizations that cut their IT R&D budgets, cut time and freedom for IT to explore the frontiers of the impossible, cut time and freedom for IT to make sense of a technology world that is exceeding business ability to fathom what can be made possible in a technology world that is moving at the speed of light,  I predict a dull and slow fall into oblivion.  The organization and technologists that will thrive, survive, and mark their impact on the world will embrace and celebrate a Bernini's type of IT with passion for innovation.  Please do not ask your technologist to make copies of IT art ... It is interesting to me because I often times find IT the reflection of its business culture and beliefs.  Bernini is a reflection of a patron who believed in the artist ability to rise above the level of expectations of medieval time limitations.