A thing can be entirely new - even when there is virtually no aspect of it that is novel. The smallest difference, can make all the difference - especially when the difference is something as abstract as the marginal cost of reproduction.
On this page we'll explore the design criteria for making something **entirely new**, and how this may often be surprisingly close to nothing new.
# A bit of history
The internet was not entirely new - but we refer to it as such. I personally remember showing the rich future of interactive video, networked hypertext of medical images, pateint notes and heart sounds to doctors, professors and medical students some years before the internet.
The interactive media we created at the Multimedia Authoring Centre from 1989-92 was in essence no different from the books, and videos presented at our library (where our new department was based). I remember repeatedly being told that in essence this way of presenting information was "nothing new".
What was new however was the speed of doing this, what was different was the cost of accessing the knowledge across geographical distance. Instead of days to arrive, that book or video would arrive (possibly not in the same quality) - but in fractions fo a second. This small change transformed learning and reading. It became the internet - something that we might call new.
# Building on the old
It is often the case, especially in this world that worships novelty, that to be **entirely new** we may be advised to look far back in the past - somewhere overlooked. In the world of Institutional Design we can find a rich and tested design source in the deep past and anthropology.
# More than digital The new digital institutions that will make up the future are currently being designed. They will be cheaper, faster, smaller and able to process knowledge at many magnitudes of order greater than those we currenlty find in the Matrix. But they key to understanding how these institutions will be built is to understand how they will be More than Digital.