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After the Stall
As the examples and terms suggest, the five qualities of leverage, adaptability,
ease of mastery, accessibility, and transferability often reinforce one another.
And the absence of one of these factors may prevent a technology from being
generative. A system that is accessible but difficult to master may still be generative
if a small but varied group of skilled users make their work available to
less-sophisticated users. Usually, however, a major deficiency in any one factor
greatly reduces overall generativity. This is the case with many tools that are
leveraging and adaptable but difficult to master. For example, while some enjoy
tinkering in home workshops, making small birdhouses using wood and a saw,
most cannot build their own boats or decks, much less pass those creations on
to others. Similarly, there are plenty of examples of technology that is easy to
master and is quite adaptable, but lacks leverage. Lego building blocks are easy
to master and can produce a great range of shapes, but regardless of the skill behind
their arrangement they remain small piles of plastic, which largely confines
their uses to that of toys.
The more that the five qualities are maximized, the easier it is for a system or
platform to welcome contributions from outsiders as well as insiders. Maximizing
these qualities facilitates the technology’s deployment in unanticipated
ways. Table 4.1 lists examples of generative tools. For comparison, the table also
includes some of these tools’ less generative counterparts. Views on these categories
or particular examples will undoubtedly vary, but some themes emerge.
In general, generative tools are more basic and less specialized for accomplishing
a particular purpose; these qualities make such tools more usable for many
tasks. Generative technologies may require the user to possess some skill in order
for the tool to be even minimally useful—compare a piano with a music
box—but once the user has acquired some skill, the tools support a wider range
of applications.
Generative tools are individually useful. Generative systems are sets of tools
and practices that develop among large groups of people. These systems provide
an environment for new and best—or at least most popular—practices to
spread and diversify further within them. Generative systems can be built on
non-generative platforms—no technical reason prevented CompuServe from
developing wiki-like features and inviting its subscribers to contribute to something
resembling Wikipedia—but frequently generativity at one layer is the
best recipe for generativity at the layer above.