As I contemplate stepping out into some pretty deep waters (more on that later ;-), I’ve come across a thoughtful little collection of inspiring quotes and blog posts. These will resonate with anyone one has tried to innovate, or create something new, or lead change (but especially around anything “2.0″).

Dave posts and Euan reposts a quote from Machiavelli:

It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things; for the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order; this lukewarmness arising partly from the incredulity of mankind who does not truly believe in anything new until they actually have experience of it

Well, that sounds like a real barrel of laughs.

Taking a topical look at the same subject, Rob Paterson unearthed the inspiring and somewhat funny story (well funny now) of how a guy called Dick Fosbury scandalised the athletics establishment in 1968 by daring to innovate – flying over a high jump backwards. He wasn’t breaking the rules – he was innovating. And he won the Gold Medal.

Fosbury himself has said:

“The problem with something revolutionary like that was that most of the elite athletes had invested so much time in their technique and movements that they didn’t want to give it up, so they stuck with what they knew,”

Rob draws the analogy between the Fosbury Flop and the reception in today’s organisations to a “2.0 culture” as he puts it. Whatever you call it (social media/computing, Web 2.0, Participatory Culture, etc), change will happen, it is not being universally embraced and we can do nothing to stop (or possibly even steer) it.

Clay Shirky writes (in his fabulous book “Here Comes Everybody”):

“Arguments about whether new forms of sharing or collaboration are, on balance, good or bad reveal more about the speaker than the subject.”

and

“The mistakes that novices make come from a lack of experience. They overestimate mere fads, seeing revolution everywhere, and they make this kind of mistake a thousand times before they learn better. But in times of revolution, the experienced among us make the opposite mistake. When a real once-in-a-lifetime change comes along, we are at risk of regarding it as a fad.”

Re-reading that last quote, I have to smile – with selective emphasis it could be used as ammunition by both the novices and the experienced, the “believers” and the “non-believers”!

So as I hear all the Web 2.0 and social media nuts enthusiasts cheering, I want to remind you and remind myself, that along with all that revolutionary capability comes lots and lots failure. Shirky says “new social systems have to tolerate enormous amounts of failure”. Its the capacity for large amounts of cheap or safe-fail enterprises/experiments that allows fabulously successful examples emerge.

So…, that means most of us will fail. At some stage – perhaps regularly! And the “old order” will helpfully point that out, and the “lukewarmers” will drift away. And we learn from the experience and move on quickly and adapt and innovate. We learn from it, and we may even learn to love it.

And I suppose what all that means is, rather than needing to be courageous, I just need to be aware, adaptive, resilient and persistent.