Researchers have coded a book into DNA, demonstrating the possibility of using the biological molecule for long-term data storage. Identifying that billions of bits of information are already stored in our DNA to determine what we will look like, what foods we like and our personality, researchers at Harvard and Johns Hopkins Universities have encoded a 53,000 word book including 11 JPG images and one JavaScript. This is a landmark discovery in answer to what is becoming a very big issue: how to store the amount of digital data being created at a very rapid rate.
They estimate that 1 gram of single-strand DNA could hold has much as an exabyte (10^18 bytes) of data or as much as 250 million DVDs.
The word innovation comes from the Latin word innovare meaning “to change” and refers to the notion of doing something different rather than doing the same thing better. “There is no such thing as an unprecedented technological innovation because it is impossible for an inventor to work in a vacuum and, however ingenious his invention; it must arise out of his own previous experience.”
The very best innovations come out of a marriage of totally different fields like the above example of information technology and biology. This can be explained by the so called Medici effect. The Medici effect is named after the powerful and wealthy Medici family from Italy in the 15th Century. Through their support of the collaboration of scientists, artists, philosophers and other creative individuals, the combination of minds helped to inspire numerous innovative ideas. The result was that the world emerged from the Dark Ages and the foundations of today’s art and science were born.
In today’s world, the Medici effect is the intersection where “two or more cultures, disciplines, mind-sets, or ways of viewing the world come together. It is in these intersections that new, high-value ideas emerge.”
This theory also applies to some of the biggest innovations in advertising. For example, back in the 1930’s P&G sponsored a daily radio program for housewives who had gone back into the home after the end of the war. The program centered around the home (soap/P&G’s funding) and offered a melodramatic (opera) version of events for the key characters. These radio programs were then turned into a TV format and soap operas are still going strong today. This innovation borrowed aspects of storytelling and applied them to advertising, creating a whole new genre of show and a new way to advertise. Since then, we’ve seen many advertising innovations that lend ideas from different fields; the inclusion of smell in print ads, Cowvertising, Viewa technology, crying billboards and the list goes on.
In today’s media world, innovation is key in making us stand out from the overcrowding. With so much that has already been done in the past 100 years or so of advertising, we need to ensure that we’re still exciting.
This doesn’t mean we have to invent new ideas, but we need to do something different to get noticed and a way to generate a different thought process is to borrow great ideas from another field. We’re constantly trying to add something a bit extra for our clients, however small, so whether that be presenting a new plan to a client accompanied by a jig (media + dancing) or coming up with an efficient way to sort through emails (media + IT), we have much to learn from the 15th century about how to come up with the next big thing. Consumers are much more savvy than they were back in the days of the original soap operas, however we can still learn a thing or two from these housewives.
Jasmine Lee
Trainee Strategist
UM Melbourne