The author was perplexed when asked "what's the pain?" by a venture capital firm seeking to fund the development of their new web publishing concept called IncrediCube. Traditionally, innovations were evaluated based on their usefulness in addressing basic human needs like food, shelter, work and interaction. However, modern innovations like computers and the internet are difficult to explain in simple terms and address more abstract needs. While a goat herder may not understand such technologies, their widespread use implies they fulfill real needs, even if those needs are challenging to define. The essay will explore this issue further in the next part.

1. What's the pain?
An essay on the rhetoric behind innovation
By
Eyal Engelhardt Ari, PhD.
In a recent meeting with a venture-capital firm, as part of our ongoing endeavor to
secure funding for the continued development of IncrediCube, we were asked a strange
question that I never encountered before - "what's the pain?" As I did not suffer any
pain at the time, I was perplexed as to the meaning of this odd inquiry. I mean, we did
not come to pitch an idea for a new drug or medical procedure. We are developing a
new concept for web publishing and sharing of information. What sort of pain can we
possibly be asked to mitigate? The question haunted me for days afterward, and I was
obliged to ponder about its meaning.
So, what does it mean "what is the pain?" in the context of innovation and capital? On
the face of it, it seems to simply mean "What is it good for?" or "what needs are
addressed?" Such "positive" questions make sense: "good" is the basis for the term
"goods" for describing movable property or commodities that address real and tangible
"needs". But how does "pain" come into play here? Why substitute the wholly positive
term "good" for the definitively negative term "pain"? Why imply that "pain" is an
indication for "needs"? Well, the answer lies in the shifting definition of "needs".
Save in a few isolated periods of time (that will be discussed later), prior to the explosion
of the information society in the west merely a few decades ago, innovative theoretical
and technological advances were evaluated based on one primary consideration – their
usefulness. The most successful and enduring innovations addressed the various facets
of the basic needs of life - feeding, finding shelter and security, working, and interacting.
Others were mostly perceived as mere curiosities, and sometimes as heretical
abominations.
Take that greatest Roman invention – concrete. What's it good for? It's good for building
anything anywhere cheaper and stronger. This simple answer is accurate and makes
sense in every culture and in every language on the face of the planet now as it did then.
Now let's leap in time to a modernist invention – the telephone. What's it good for? It is
good for allowing people to speak with one another beyond the shouting distance. This
concept can be explained just as easily to a sophisticated scientist in MIT and to a goat
herder in Yemen. It could have been invented at any time in history, and be just as easy
to understand. In other words, until quite recently, all important innovations, the ones
that defined civilizations and changed our lives, are simple to understand, address basic
human needs, are timeless, and universal.
Now let's ask ourselves "what is a computer good for?" well, it's good for processing
large amounts of information. No wait, it’s a sophisticated typewriter really. No, it's
really a sophisticated calculator. No, it's a sort of television. Hey, you can also play

2. games with it. No, wait, it's good for using the internet. What's the internet good for?
Well, it's good for connecting computers together. Really, what is a computer good for
again? Well, with the internet it is good for connecting people. Like a telephone? No, like
Facebook . . . Yeah, right, try explaining this to a Yemeni goat herder. In other words,
since the implosion of the western entertainment seeking computer-based economies,
the most prominent innovations have been extremely difficult to understand, address
chimerical needs, are transient, and culture specific.
Nonetheless, it would be idiotic to claim that the entire IT advances of the past few
decades have been useless since a goat herder, and even most ordinary contemporary
people, are ill-equipped to fully understand the concept of a computer, the internet,
blogging, bookmarking, or social networking. There is no doubt that the reasons so many
people, all over the world, use these technologies, often without pondering what they
are really good for, implies that they address real needs. But what needs are those?
This issue and others will be discussed in the next part of this essay.
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