After a long drive up to the shores of Lake Michigan, I opened my laptop to check up on a day or so of lost e-mail, and in my in-box were a slew of messages reporting on the passing of Chris Freeman. It’s apt that I sit here writing this feeling the cool breezes off the gorgeous clear blue lake on this magnificent August day thinking back on his work and life.

Chris Freeman was one of the greatest thinkers and scholars of innovation and the dynamics of the capitalist economy. Born in 1921, the same year as my own father, Freeman not only studied capitalist innovation and dynamics, he lived them. As a young boy, he watched the world lapse into depression, he watched England be eclipsed as an economic power, and he watched the tremendous power of innovation propel post-war growth and prosperity. He saw the rise of the corporate R&D lab and the bureaucratization of innovation that Schumpeter had written about, and then he saw the surge in entrepreneurial venture capital financed innovation in the late 20th century. He witnessed firsthand the bursting forward of innovation in great bunches and bundles, pushing capitalism forward and changing its stripes as it did so. But he was never, ever a technological determinist. Throughout his work, he called attention to the complex and nuanced interplay between technology and organization in shaping both economy and society.

His impact on me was huge, not just as a thinker but as a person and a role model. He wasn’t just a scholar, he was an institution-builder and the institution he built – the Science Policy Research Unit or SPRU – helped define the field of innovation studies. He was also a key force behind the journal Research Policy, which published so many key articles and essays that shaped this field.

Freeman had a most profound influence on my work. I pulled his books off my library shelves just this past year – his work on long waves, the bundling of innovation, and the role of innovation and capitalist crises – as I was working on my latest book. He wrote articles and books packed with data and insight but always in clear, concise language. I’ve tried my best to follow a bit in his footsteps – to stand as much as I can on the shoulders of this great intellectual giant.

There is so much more I could say about his work and his influence, but right now I am remembering the first time we met. It was 20 or 25 years ago at a specialized academic conference on innovation. He was a distinguished senior scholar, and me a very junior, very beginning assistant professor. I was very nervous to approach someone whose work I had read and who was something of an idol to me – and to so many of us at the time. But I made my way over and introduced myself and tried to say something that might connect. What came out, rather awkwardly, was this: “So what, Professor Freeman, what was it exactly, that drew you to the work of Joseph Schumpeter?”

Perhaps reading my body language or understanding my own influences and thought processes better than I did myself, he smiled kindly and replied straightforwardly, “I’ve always been fond of Schumpeter, but when it comes right down to it, I was really into Marx. But in those years it was taboo to talk about Marx, so I started writing about Schumpeter and the rest is history.”

I was blown away by his honesty and candor – how he captured in that one short remark the nature of the academic enterprise, so to speak. It was one of the most important sources of advice and inspiration I would ever receive, and on so many levels. His words have stayed right at the front of my mind to be retrieved whenever needed for all those intervening years.

He will be missed but his work and influence live on.

Hello Everybody! I’m Kwende Kefentse. It’s very cool to be involved in this exchange with all of you. For my part, I’m a DJ and student from Toronto and currently living in Ottawa. My work focuses on understanding the relationship between place and the development of culture, specifically in the city – what’s been termed “urban culture.”

Just the idea that there is a genre of music that is spatially defined is something that Richard and I agree is relevant – does this imply that we have some kind of shared idea about what “urban” means. How does the physical urban space relate to that construct? I’ve been engaged in study and in developing my ideas for a long time, and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you all and getting feedback about the way that urban arts/music and youth scenes work in your cities, and your ideas about the effect of space on expression.

I thought that for the first blog, we could start with something general to give you a sense of my perspective: The Dark Knight. I know that comic book movies have been all the rage this summer, but how good is this movie though?! However many billions of dollars later, this movie has (nearly?) become the biggest box office blowout of all time. It’s that good. Kudos to DC Comics for reinvigorating that franchise.

During the previews, at least in North America, DC began the hype-machine for their next feature film: Watchmen. The original 12 comics were written by Alan Moore, a master of his craft if there ever was one. I can say without a shred of hyperbole that it is one of the most nuanced, morally complex, structurally ingenious, transformative works to be printed to paper in the last century. If you don’t believe me, Google will tell you the same.

The hype-machine pumped out seven posters and released them to the web the other week. As I was trying to figure out what to say to all of you in my first post, this poster spoke to me:

Not to ruin any of the story for the people who are going to see this film, but when Dr. Wally Weaver makes that comment he is talking about the character Dr. Manhattan, it’s that blue gentleman with his back to us, floating in the lotus position. Dr. Manhattan used to be a regular human being and a scientist, but he changed and has become something much more than human. Dr. Weaver is trying to say that in his transformation Manhattan also transformed what mankind imagined it could be. There had been nothing like him before, and moreover we couldn’t go back to the way things had been. He represents a fundamental system change.

It’s a typical Moore-type metaphor – one that rings right through time and space. The image of Manhattan has been associated with that very kind of change since the island was gridded out in 1807. There had never been a space quite like it before. Its critical mass represented an opportunity for change. Changes in housing law out of New York (the 1879 and 1901 tenement laws) affected lot sizes in cities all over North America. When they were thinking to call the WWII Nuclear project “The Knoxville Project” (Thanx Wikipedia) , they thought better and settled on the name “Manhattan” for the project that would change the face of the world forever. The U.N. would eventually establish its headquarters there. Modern architecture would transform the idea of the city in New York. System change is part of its profile. We have been in the shadow of Manhattan for quite some time now it seems.

On the north side of the island in the South Bronx there was light though. In 1973, as the tax base fled, emerging out of the shadow of Manhattan, kids were collecting their feelings and observations about the city and unleashing them as either b-boying/breakdancing, djing, emceeing, and writing graffiti. As natives of the space – the first real natives of the modern city – the social innovators in the community collected the individual art forms into a culture and system of expression that would literally become synonymous with the modern city as we know it. The entire content and formation of it was the urban experience. Eventually it would be a beacon to youth, whether urban or suburban, American or otherwise. As it became disseminated through the media from city to city around the world, hip hop culture would affect not only the way we walk and talk, but the way we think about art, and the possibilities of expression as young people in cities. It would represent a fundamental system change in the way young people in cities identified themselves and related to each other.

This isn’t to say that all young people are into hip hop, but it’s just to acknowledge the fundamental changes that have taken place. How many people in my age bracket really think that graffiti is a crime? How many young people think that DJ’ing is a cool thing to do? When did your parents learn the word “dis”? Why do they say it like it ain’t no thang – how did that become normalized? Why is Barack Obama’s hip hop mannerism so explosive? I won’t make mention of the entire industry of music that came literally out of nowhere in the late 70’s to dominate the world in the late 90’s and beyond.

It’s easy to be glib about all of this, but we have to remember that it hasn’t always been like this. Not cities, and not the culture of the city either. How did this specific expression of place transcend culture and resonate so strongly all over the globe? I remember being almost the only kid in my school that liked hip hop or even really knew about it. Is that even possible now?

As the planet enters its first urban age, one of the things I’m trying to figure out is this: As one of the first modern cities in the world, how long is Manhattan’s shadow? How bright is its beacon?

I’m looking forward to thinking about that and more with you all.

And now some music to help it all go down. I’ll keep it shorter next time, I promise.

Peace,

-K