The first definition is “Generativity denotes a technology’s overall capacity to produce unprompted change driven by large, varied, and uncoordinated audiences.” Barbed wire is generative by this criterion, as are explosive devices.

Then Prof. Zittrain refines this by presenting four other criteria: ease of leverage, adaptability, ease of mastery and accessibility. One problem I had with those is that it is unclear *for how many people* something must meet these criteria in order to be “generative.” Depending on what tasks are pertinent, I might or, more likely, might not have “mastered” PCs, the Internet, etc. Depending on how small a group is sufficient, CMOS design, genetic engineering and microimprint lithography might fit this definition — so what’s special about the Internet? And then, a fortiori, cooking, woodworking and agriculture would also fit the definition since they have been mastered by millions — so again, why single out the Internet? (Indeed, explosive devices probably fit these criteria as well — there are many applications of blowing things up — in which case is “generative” apt?)

All in all, the category of generativity seemed kind of slippery, and not at all easy to master (so not particularly ‘generative’?). It seems mainly to be a scholar’s marketing device: first, to make the author’s pet interests sound special and ultra-worthy, and second, to create a buzzword that might capture some of the “disruptive technology” lustre — though at least Clayton Christensen had a well-limned practical definition.

I hope the analysis in the book is much clearer than in this HLR article. Also, I hope Prof. Zittrain wrote the book with a lighter style; as for the article, limpid it isn’t.