Those who innovate are capable of visualising a world different to the current status quo, says Steve Griffiths, CEO and founder of Absolute Collateral
Innovation has become inseparable from technology, which is why it is important to understand exactly what the nature of innovation is, and the many applications it can have.
Imagination
Innovators are by their nature, highly imaginative and capable of visualising a world different to the current status quo. Their ability to hold this vision in one hand, while understanding the mechanisms needed to bring their idea into fruition, is their skill.
It requires the blending of intellect — logic, reason and objectivity — with intuitive abilities — emotions, creativity and subjectivity — to form a new perspective, through which the traditional framework is perceived and interpreted. This is their uniqueness.
When you innovate, you tread an unknown path. Far too often, companies and investors attempt to confine creativity within key performance indicators (KPIs), metrics, and rigid procedures, hoping to transform the unfamiliar into the familiar through a mechanised process with prescribed steps. The true innovator comprehends what is known, and recognises that the unknown is the very essence that allows innovation to take shape.
Without uncharted territories, there exists no space for change or the emergence of fresh ideas.
When innovation is applied to technology, it allows this freedom of perception even greater reach. To be innovative is to change existing frameworks. The manner in which this is done is understood by the innovator. This is their tool.
Financial markets
The financial markets’ application of innovative technology is geared towards making money, as well as its associated aspects, such as revenue, volume, client acquisition, and market share. This frames innovation in a certain light, but money is only one aspect. Arguably, innovation and creativity are then only ‘tolerated’ when they produce something tangible that makes money.
Permitting innovation to develop along only one narrow path, by definition, restricts its potential. It not only diminishes and limits that spark of innovation, but it causes the one path that is open (money) to destabilise. Firms can end up in a situation where the very goal they are trying to achieve becomes ever-elusive.
Innovation transcends the concept of money, so tying your ideas, processes, and methods to money, causes innovation to suffer. This is the heart of the problem regarding innovation. Innovation defies restraints, and while money is an important avenue, it is not the only one.
Innovation allows for the possibility to achieve more than mere intellect, data, logic and objectivity functions can comprehend. To reduce the focus of innovation to money, limits the potential for this extraordinary possibility. This is the core of the innovative dilemma.
Technology is a catalyst for a growing financial market. It puts players from all areas of the globe in contact with one another. Your perspective on the markets is no longer limited to what is in front of you, but expanded to infinite global possibilities previously denied. The ability to integrate a global perspective with your own personal view is essential.
Technology
The modern world revolves around technology, and applications are embedded into nearly every decision making process. The way individuals relate to technology can define their ability to assimilate a global perspective and reconcile it with their personal viewpoint. Technology, therefore, should enhance an individual’s perspective while developing that individual’s ability to learn skills and capture new opportunities.
The balance between computer algorithms and AI doing work on behalf of an individual, diminishes that individual’s capacity to develop — those processes are taken care of and automated without an individual’s conscious thought. Essentially, the need for a mind and conscious thought become redundant.
Technology backed by innovative ideals — to enhance an individual’s development — is how innovation changes the world constructively. As individuals evolve, these changes are reflected and accelerated by technology.
This simple understanding is embedded in an innovative person. Their skill in bringing innovative ideas to reality, all while working within the status quo. This is the challenge they accept. The great results that follow are the reward — a reward which also happens to benefit the whole market simultaneously.
Absolute Collateral
At Absolute Collateral, we work with market participants and infrastructure entities, each of whom have a unique perspective, and can redirect resources previously spent maintaining artificial boundaries into expanded trading, realising that sometimes no action, is itself, action.
The financial markets do not exist as a separate thing in of itself. The markets exist as a collection of relationships between each player involved, where the products (and money) act as a medium through which ideas are expressed. This then creates a unique perspective, each of which can combine in myriad ways, reinforcing existing markets and products, as well as creating new ones. The totality of this is what we call ‘the financial markets’.
Therefore all players, large and small, are connected and communicating to each other via this field of activity, all while remaining unique individuals within it. Every action and inaction by one player is communicated to every other player via updated activity in the markets. It is then realised that no action, is action. How?
Take a simple trade. When a trade is executed, the financial market reflects this change in all those combinations available (increased volume, price discovery, market share, revenue etc). If this trade takes place in a new market a particular player is not involved in, all that really happens is that that player limits their perspective of the action or change. They have still changed, since the market has changed.
If the player continues their course of no action, they develop along a path that ignores the updated action, and can miss opportunities to grow and develop in new ways. Carried too far, great adjustments are needed to realign to the current financial market and expand trading ideas to include these new markets and products.
In this scenario, our new market remains underdeveloped, siloed, or ‘one-way’. This not only affects those within the new market, but everyone else as well. Potential combinations between and within all products, markets and players remain latent. When one loses, all lose.
We therefore provide opportunities for all market participants and infrastructure entities to grow and develop into new markets that they themselves are already a part of. We provide the tools for individual development and growth that lay latent, but ready to be activated.
