Can We Get Our Innovation Edge Back?

Editor's Note

December 2007 / January 2008 By: Bob Cochnar Volume 5 Number 6

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John Kao, business consultant, college professor, entrepreneur and innovation expert, has a new book, Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge and What We Can Do to Get it Back. We liked it so much we've published an excerpt in this issue (Page 8). We think you'll like it, too.

Of particular interest to us is Kao's definition of innovation, which mirrors our own take almost precisely. Says he:

"Innovation flows from shifts of mind-set that can generate new business models, recognize new opportunities and weave innovations throughout the fabric of society. It is about new ways of doing and seeing things as much as it is about the breakthrough idea."

It should come as no surprise to you to be told that our nation's innovative (and competitive) juices aren't flowing as fast as they should. In the last couple of years Innovation, among other magazines and newspapers, has published articles on a a number of grim reports, not the least of which was the National Academies of Science's landmark 2005 study, Rising Above the Gathering Storm.
Congress has passed legislation (the America Competes Act), signed into law by the president, that among other things calls for the development of an "innovation infrastructure and environment that encourages growth."

This is all to the good but in reality, many of the innovative ideas in the future will, as usual, come from the private sector. With globalization, however, those innovative ideas won't reside exclusively in the U.S. As John Kao observes:

"A strong United States will certainly be central to global progress and to the advent of Innovation World. Perhaps we will become the Silicon Valley equivalent on the world stage.
"No nation is perfect, of course, and the United States is no exception. But we do have an unmatched record of altruism and of translating humanistic values into social action. The United States's scale, wealth and history of influence will, I believe, continue to make it the —€˜indispensable nation' in a world of innovators, but it will no longer own the keys to innovation exclusively."

It would not be a very good idea, however, merely to sit back and watch this "indispensable nation" evolve as nature takes its course.

Meanwhile, the man who invented the Palm Pilot and the Treo smart phone is now taking aim at the brain. That would be Jeff Hawkins, who in 2004 wrote On Intelligence, a book that has caught the attention of a number of scientists, some of which are engaged in brain-related work at national energy laboratories.
The book has received plenty of plaudits, including this one from Walter Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal columnist:

"On Intelligence is an important book. It lays out a dramatic new unified theory of how the brain works—€¦. And it predicts an exciting technology future filled with truly intelligent machines that go far beyond today's computers and crude robots."

You'll want to read Dean Takahashi's fascinating interview with Hawkins, which begins on Page 20, and is followed by equally fascinating reports on computing and intelligence from several energy labs.