Taiwan takes a hard look at the value of creativity

Taiwan, which has for decades churned out goods for companies around the world, is undoubtedly a master manufacturer. Its products range from low-end plastic toys to ultra-sophisticated computer chips. But its successful business model is under threat. Competitors in the mainland and India are cashing in on the outsourcing of manufacturing by leveraging cheap production bases that keep costs to a minimum. As Taiwan's building block of success is slowly chipped away, its movers and shakers have switched their focus to innovation. But while this is the correct approach, they have not gone beyond improving on manufacturing and cutting costs to win orders from overseas. Now a new groundswell of opinion holds that the island should be inventing its own ideas to change the world. A toy monkey the size of a mobile phone that can help the hearing impaired? An art installation made of bamboo charcoal that can keep water clean? Not exactly enough to rival the Sony Walkman or the Apple iPod yet, but it could be the start of something big. The Creativity Lab, part of the quasi-governmental Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Hsinchu, has been set up to help companies find new ways of thinking about technology. 'Pure manufacturing is no longer valuable as everyone is looking to create value,' said Hsueh Wen-jean, who holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from Cal Tech in the United States and heads up the lab. 'Taiwan will have to start creating something new rather than simply excelling at making products better and cheaper. It means inspiring people to become visionaries.' That is exactly what the lab is trying to do. The lab's 30-strong team of electronic engineers, industrial designers, computer animators, literature graduates, artists and psychologists are working on ideas that could eventually demonstrate that creativity can generate economic value. No viable commercial product has been invented so far, but the executives are not fazed. 'In Taiwan we have been taught to answer questions rather than finding the right questions to ask,' ITRI president Johnsee Lee said. 'It will take time to change the way people think.' The traditional industrial and manufacturing culture has deep roots in the island, and the education system preaches to students rather than letting them explore ideas in a creative way themselves. The Creativity Lab has an open office design to encourage interaction within the team, and there are small rooms or capsules where team members can disappear into their own space for some time alone. The lab's key partner is the Media Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the centre where science and arts are harnessed to make technological breakthroughs. Although the Taiwan lab has not yet gone beyond the conceptual, the facility marks the first step on a path that other Asian countries have pledged to follow but have so far fallen short. At present, Ms Hsueh and her team are studying 'the spirit of playfulness' to be found in everyday gadgets. The office is littered with children's toys, bicycles and other gadgets. 'We want to dig into our past experiences and use this as a way of developing a service or product that has a meaning or brings new value to the consumer,' she said. The lab's Project Aqua is exactly that. Intelligent electronic fish, created by a computer animator, swim alongside real fish and project coloured lights on to surrounding walls. The big difference is that these electronic fish can be used to feed other tropical fish - and they double as surveillance cameras. Ms Hsueh said other concepts that the team would be exploring included the living space of the future, how families could maintain long-distance relationships and how interaction in the home could be strengthened. But the lack of a tangible product so far has produced its share of sceptics. 'It's good to come up with new ideas, but this organisation is far too pie-in-the-sky,' said Wang Ping-lin, owner of a car parts manufacturer in Taipei. 'We should be playing to our strengths, not trying something we can't do.' Meanwhile, MIT does not have a stellar record exporting its Media Lab to other countries. Efforts to launch similar models in India a few years ago fizzled out. Taiwan built up an electronics industry in the 1980s that has become a world market leader in such products as notebook computers and mobile phones, but too many people are resting on this success. The island ranks among the top three or four countries in terms of the number of patents granted in the United States. Although Taiwan has been getting a large number of patents, many of them are improvement patents, or extensions of concepts. 'They are not technologies or ideas that can drive new business opportunities,' Mr Lee said. That is partly the reason the Creativity Lab has brought together eight local companies in a group dubbed the Next Consortium. The group's task is to focus on the development of new products in key sectors.