13 Make Maintainers: Engineering Education and an Ethics of Care

We start with a crucial distinction: the difference between innovation and the way people talk about it. On the one hand, there are the various acts that we can refer to as innovation. On the other hand, there is all the talk about innovation, a public discourse that we refer to as "innovation-speak." These things are related but conceptually distinct; indeed, for over ten years now we have seen prominent professionals complain about innovation-speak as a way to defend the act of innovation. For example, in 2005 designer and writer Michael Bierut bemoaned the "cult of innovation," complained that innovation was a "euphemism," a "bandwagon," and a "fad," and reminded his readers of a warning from the legendary designer Charles Eames: "Innovate as a last resort: More horrors are done in the name of innovation than any other."1