Abstract
The emergence of novelty—a new technology or organizational form, or even an entirely new field—has long been a central theme in research on innovation and technology evolution, organizational theory, and institutional entrepreneurship. That these diverse research traditions broadly share the same interest in the emergence of novelty is testimony to the importance of the phenomenon. Each research tradition is rooted in a distinct theoretical perspective and exposes specific mechanisms that are presumed to generate novelty, but deeper insight into the conditions that enable novelty to emerge and take hold stems from integrating those traditions and, possibly, reconciling their differences. For instance, the creation of an entirely new field can hardly be ascribed to the decisions and actions of a single actor (individual or organization) without also invoking features of the broader institutional environment that accommodated them and the social audiences or constituencies willing to provide resources to sustain those decisions and actions. A few attempts have been made to integrate these different research streams. The Sound of Innovation is a systematic effort to develop an interdisciplinary and multilevel account of the emergence of a new field—computer music—that should inspire other scholars to engage in similar endeavors.
Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the central questions of the book and how the author answers them. By explaining why and how the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) emerged, the book does not simply trace the origins and successful development of an organization; it examines how the entirely new field of computer music—which today permeates academia, industry, and our daily lives—was created. Nelson carefully probes the conditions that proved critical for its creation and then examines how CCRMA has managed to remain innovative for more than 50 years and to develop a unique innovative culture that permeates the way work is done. Nelson proposes three broad factors: radical interdisciplinarity, with participants from a wide range of disciplines collaborating in pursuit of a common goal; open innovation, including user innovation, free and open source software, and technical standards; and university technology transfer and research commercialization.
Chapter 2 provides rich historical background on the broader institutional environment in which CCRMA began its operations, succinctly describing the history of Stanford University and the Stanford Music Department and the key role played by Frederick Terman in fostering interdisciplinary research between academia and industry. As dean of the School of Engineering (starting in 1946) and then provost (starting in 1955), Terman saw the expansion of the federal budget during the Cold War era as an opportunity to support both basic and applied research. The chapter details how Terman oriented Stanford academic hiring and research budgets around government grants and contracts and encouraged strong ties between the university and industry—following his advice, two of his students founded Hewlett-Packard. Terman also promoted interdisciplinarity to further enhance engineering education. At the time, Stanford was lagging behind other academic institutions such as MIT and Harvard. He successfully brought together science (mathematics, physics, and chemistry) and engineering. Nelson describes these early efforts to support interdisciplinary work as sowing the seeds of what he calls “radical” interdisciplinarity, which later resulted in the incorporation of humanities, social sciences, and other fields as well. The establishment of CCRMA and its influence can be properly explained and understood against this backdrop. For instance, the dramatic increase in interdisciplinary centers created in the late 1960s was an outgrowth of Terman’s efforts. Chapter 3 further describes the early days of computer music, particularly the pioneering programming work by Max Mathews at AT&T’s Bell Labs to generate music with a computer, the user-driven innovation conducted at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab, and John Chowning’s discovery of frequency modulation (FM) synthesis, which made computer music possible. By bringing together music and engineering, Chowning’s FM synthesis is emblematic of radical interdisciplinarity. Chapter 4 examines CCRMA’s initial challenges to establish credibility, carry out interdisciplinary research, promote computer music, and raise funds. A key concept discussed in the chapter is multivocality: the ability to perform multiple activities with a variety of constituents. Multivocality is intertwined with interdisciplinarity because, lacking multivocality, it would be extremely difficult to effectively communicate across boundaries and establish credibility when one works between disciplines.
In chapter 5, Nelson probes the university–industry collaboration by tracing CCRMA’s 40-year relationship with Yamaha. Besides analyzing the benefits for both CCRMA (and, more generally, any academic institution) and Yamaha, the chapter addresses some issues that emerge when goals and incentives are not aligned. While the first five chapters offer a detailed account of how CCRMA emerged and developed, chapter 6 is mainly concerned with its sustenance and renewal over time. The commercial success of DX7—the first digital synthesizer based on Chowning’s FM synthesis technique introduced by Yamaha in 1983—and the ensuing revenue stream accruing to CCRMA marked a significant shift in the emphasis that CCRMA placed on the commercial development of technologies for musical purposes during the 1980s and 1990s. The increased emphasis on intellectual property, patents, licensing, and revenues also raised the question of how to establish the right balance among science, technology, and commercialization. Chapter 7 sheds further light on some of the more-nuanced implications of the interplay among interdisciplinarity, open innovation, and the quest for commercial applications. CCRMA’s early success with the FM synthesizer is ascribed to its emphasis on academic goals. Activities such as embracing user innovation, making source software free and open, fostering technical standards, and licensing academic patents (commercialization) were essentially an outgrowth of those academic goals. When commercial goals took precedence—like the Sondius program’s emphasis on formal patent-linked technology transfer through the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL)—CCRMA did not repeat the same success because commercial activities threatened to displace academic activities. The key lesson is that the balance between academic and commercial activities is likely to determine the success of the relationship among science, technology, and commercialization. Chapter 8 describes some of the recent efforts to leverage multivocality and intertwine interdisciplinary pursuits with commercial applications against a backdrop of renewed emphasis on open innovation.
This book is impressive in many respects. It draws from a unique array of data collected over 14 years, including interviews with key protagonists and incredibly rich archival documents (e.g., business correspondence, meeting minutes, grant proposals and reviews, and technology licensing documentation). Although historical studies offer opportunities to examine and evaluate social processes in ways that cross-sectional and large-sample longitudinal studies, for example, cannot, accounts that “look back” often neglect the concrete details that constitute and shape actions in favor of more abstract accounts that highlight the spirit of the times (Hargadon and Douglas, 2001). This is not the case with this book. Nelson leverages unique data to examine the key steps and decisions shaping the formation of the computer music field through the eyes of the people involved when those steps and decisions actually occurred, significantly reducing the risk of retrospective sensemaking. Furthermore, though it’s not explicitly stated, the analysis encompasses different levels of analysis: micro (individuals’ decisions and actions), meso (interested audiences or constituencies), and macro (institutional context). Each level is important in its own right and produces important insights into the emergence and development of novelty. Only a multilevel investigation that ties together the three levels can elucidate the process by which novelty emerges and then develops, especially when the analysis focuses on the formation of a new field.
I do have a few quibbles. First, and in line with previous research, computer music literally originated at the periphery of the existing music and computer science fields. Perceived as outlaws and despite facing resource constraints, early members of the computer music project had the kind of freedom that allows peripheral players to explore new, even radical possibilities without facing the conformity pressures of an established field. Interestingly, though, each member had already acquired the certification that enhanced his or her credibility in the eyes of relevant audiences or constituencies. For instance, Chowning received formal education in music but also trained himself in programming to be able to credibly interact and converse with software engineers and computer scientists. While Chowning was an outsider to these fields, chapter 3 describes how he eventually built credibility among the technical people and became an insider. This progression, however, is not always so clear. Harman and Dietrich’s (2013) edited volume on outsider scientists’ routes to innovation in biology provides a very interesting and nuanced analysis of the struggle for legitimacy of different types of outsiders (e.g., those with and without markers of credibility such as a Ph.D., a grant, or another form of certification). Chowning’s quick realization of the importance of forging personal connections between university and industry, and leveraging those connections for research purposes, is not common, certainly not at the time he started doing so. Also, in spite of some obvious challenges, Chowning managed to raise funds from multiple sources—governmental and nongovernmental—that proved critical for sustaining CCRMA’s early efforts and development over time. Clearly, without Chowning’s skills the odds of success of the computer music project would have been much slimmer. But not all outsiders have such skills or are quick to realize the importance of acquiring them.
Second, the benefits of interdisciplinarity, and especially radical interdisciplinarity, are intertwined with the particular reward system in place. Reward systems differ not simply across domains such as art and science (Crane, 1976) but also within a given domain. Interdisciplinary work became a core value of the Stanford School of Engineering under Terman and fundamentally contributed to propelling a stream of radical innovations of which Chowning’s FM synthesis technique was one of the first instances. By the same token, some of the pioneering research in behavioral sciences at Carnegie Mellon in the late 1950s and the 1960s was the outgrowth of interdisciplinary work conducted at the intersection of economics, political science, computer science, and organizational theory. Chowning himself initially paid a price for conducting boundary-spanning research that did not fit squarely within music or computer science: Stanford denied him tenure in 1973. But then, and not without some embarrassment, Stanford reconsidered its decision by appointing Chowning director of CCRMA and offering him a tenured position. The key question then is not interdisciplinary research per se—no one would question its long-term benefits—but the extent to which the system rewards this kind of research and those who are willing to engage in it. Although Nelson acknowledges this challenge at the beginning of chapter 4, the issue begs deeper investigation. In many academic fields (certainly in social sciences), promotion and tenure decisions are still predominantly based on how clearly one belongs to a particular field or discipline, which discourages and at times even penalizes those who attempt to span boundaries. Fitting in remains the most effective strategy to achieving academic success. So whether the Stanford model is truly representative of what other academic institutions do remains an open question that might be worth further exploration in future research.
My final concern is that in discussing the importance and benefits of multivocality, some of the challenges of performing multiple activities with a variety of constituents do not receive enough attention. Different constituents are likely to hold diverse perspectives, expectations, and evaluation criteria, which is partly related to my first concern about outsiders. For instance, drawing from Padgett and Ansell’s (1993) classic paper, Nelson illustrates multivocality by referring to Cosimo de’ Medici’s ability to act as a broker between diverse (economic and familial) networks in the pursuit of his interests and goals. But as Clemens and Cook (1999: 460) noted, in “our efforts to appreciate human agency, we should beware of assuming every actor a Cosimo de Medici.” In other words, superior political and/or social skills, such as those Chowning clearly possessed, unlikely belong to the repertoire of tools available to many field insiders, let alone outsiders. The origins of multivocality, especially in the formative stage of a new field, require additional investigation.
Despite these concerns, I highly recommend this book for its important substantive focus, richness of historical data, insightful and incisive discussions of the factors that led to emergence of the computer music field, and suggestive public policy implications for how to effectively shape the interaction among science, technology, and commercial applications. The book deserves the attention of anyone interested in setting conditions that propel radical innovation.