Monthly Archives: August 2011
Creative Creation Economist Joseph Schumpeter’s signal contribution to economics was to put innovation at the core of economic development. He saw beyond the field’s obsession with marginal cost analysis and price-based competition, understanding that this fixation was merely a function of the ability to model such features of the landscape cleanly, with little regard for their ultimately secondary, and perhaps even trivial, role in shaping competition among firms: [I]n capitalist reality as distinguished from its textbook picture, it is not [price] competition which counts but the competition from the new commodity, the new technology, the new source of supply, the new type of organization…– competition which commands a decisive cost or quality advantage and which strikes not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms but at their foundations and their very lives.i Schumpeter memorably labeled the outcome of this type of competition “creative destruction,” … Continue reading
There’s a famous George Orwell quote that is one of my favorites, and it speaks volumes about where many organizations are with innovation today. Orwell’s quote is: “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” What Orwell meant is that the obvious stuff that exists in front of us often disappears into the woodwork as we become consumed with daily activities, priorities and pressures. I’d suggest that for big businesses, the quote could be appended to say: To solve customer problems using innovation requires constant attention I write this today prompted by several topics. The first is Scott Anthony’s post wondering if the economy changes innovation. My answer is perhaps the opposite – can innovation change our reaction to the economy? Innovation is now more important than ever, but what’s like to happen is that the economy and the turmoil and uncertainty surrounding it will … Continue reading
I recently watched the amazing Discovery Channel documentary Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero chronicling the reconstruction of the World Trade Center after the tragedy of 9/11. The show is an awe inspiring mix of engineering marvels, construction complexity, and a healing nation. The documentary, directed by Steven Spielberg, chronicles the entire span of the project, from the initial visions of the architects, to the planning and coordination of the supervisors, to the steel, concrete, and iron workers erecting the skyscraper at jaw-dropping heights. The new World Trade center is designed to be both a memorial honoring the past, and a beacon of hope looking toward America’s future. No matter what project you are working on, there are some impressive takeaways you can apply to your own work. Continue reading
The statistics are stark according to Forbes magazine the US is losing 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month, over 42,000 factories have closed down since 1999 and some 44 million Americans rely on food stamps. I have driven through towns like Dayton Ohio, block after block of boarded up buildings, ghost towns where once there were families and businesses. The panacea for this we are told will be found in new industries, like healthcare, or in the information and services industries. Maybe, but as I discovered recently, there is a need for products in the Old Economy, and there is a need for innovation. About two months ago, I traveled out to the Naval Base at Patuxent River, Maryland to produce some marketing materials for a new solvent. That may not sound exciting, but the industrial solvent market is worth 5 billion dollars. This new product called “Navsolve” is a “Green … Continue reading
Science Magazine and the National Science Foundation presented the winners and honorable mentions in the eighth annual International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge, which drew 111 entries from 63 countries, including 24 U.S. states. From the competition…”The winners — in categories including illustration, photography, informational graphics, and multimedia — draw you into unseen worlds in very different ways and span scales from nanoparticles to colliding galaxies, and from microseconds to millennia.” You can see the inspired work here.
While the tech world considered life AJ (After Jobs), another digital pioneer of no small note also decided to call it a day – Jim Romenesko. Perhaps unknown to most, Romenesko, as The New York Times reports it, “was a blogger before there were blogs.” Working primarily to aggregate news by and for journalists – and provide the occasional insight and gossip about newsrooms across the country – Romenesko came to feel that aggregating had grown boring and tedious – that anyone could do it. On his new site, www.jimromenesko.com, he will concentrate on something that sometimes is in short supply on-line – actual reporting. So while both traditional and new media will devote reams of mirrored coverage to the departure of Steve Jobs, let’s take a moment to consider what Jim Romenesko has meant to the digital world and what the end of his news aggregating …
