Yule Heibel's Library tagged innovation →  View Popular, Search in Google

Brilliant article about Steve Jobs and Apple, by Evgeny Morozov. Here's something to think about: Jobs as Henry Ford, radically changing the landscape (or: the internet) with his inventions and innovations...
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On the surface, the car analogy seems flawless: both technologies allowed customers to do what they wanted, and boosted their autonomy, and gave them more choices about how to live their lives. But as any environmentalist, urbanplanning activist, or committed cyclist can attest, liberation was only one part of the impact that the automobile had on how we live, especially in America. Congestion, pollution, suburban sprawl, the decline of public transportation, the destruction of public space in the name of building more highways—these are only some of the less discussed effects of the automobile. Of course, the automobile did not have the same effects everywhere—compare how easy and pleasant it is to get around without a car in Portland versus Dallas—so simple appeals to technological determinism, or to the zeitgeist, or to the canonical myths about how the automobile would transform and liberate our culture, do not explain very much. Some cities and communities simply approached the automobile with the kind of philosophical sensibility that Jobs applied to his washing machine, and others did not.
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evgeny_morozov steve_jobs apple innovation

Thinking about this article in relation to what Virginia Postrel wrote about design panels (as stifling)...
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“The U.S is the most conservative country that there is in terms of supporting design,” said Schwartz, who now practices in London and primarily works in Europe and the Middle East.

Indeed, panelists noted that both the High Line and Millennium Park were heavily influenced by community members and parks advocates, rather than coming from officials or civic leaders.

And often, it is the cities themselves that hold back the creation of new and exciting projects. Waldheim noted how cities across the country have been emphasizing the importance of their historic character, and how that may be holding them back.

“They’ve spent so much time betting on their heritage, their cornice line, their streetlines and their facades,” Waldheim said. In terms of marketing, he says, this has been a success for places like Boston, but it hasn’t helped the city draw in contemporary designs that may be more attractive to younger people, especially the large amounts of college students that move into and then out of the Boston area.

But as Cox notes, there tends to be a fear of change among residents in cities.

“Communities generally understand what they have,” said Cox, “and they’re uncomfortable about losing it.”
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design atlantic_cities innovation

Neal Stephenson nails it...
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We’ve been talking about wind farms, tidal power, and solar power for decades. Some progress has been made in those areas, but energy is still all about oil. In my city, Seattle, a 35-year-old plan to run a light rail line across Lake Washington is now being blocked by a citizen initiative. Thwarted or endlessly delayed in its efforts to build things, the city plods ahead with a project to paint bicycle lanes on the pavement of thoroughfares.
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Believing we have all the technology we’ll ever need, we seek to draw attention to its destructive side effects. This seems foolish now that we find ourselves saddled with technologies like Japan’s ramshackle 1960’s-vintage reactors at Fukushima when we have the possibility of clean nuclear fusion on the horizon. The imperative to develop new technologies and implement them on a heroic scale no longer seems like the childish preoccupation of a few nerds with slide rules. It’s the only way for the human race to escape from its current predicaments. Too bad we’ve forgotten how to do it.
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innovation neal_stephenson progress futurismo world_policy_institute

Very nice set of comments on the Steve Jobs quotes recently featured in the Wall Street Journal.
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Herewith, without further ado, a minor eulogy for Steve Jobs the CEO. When you look at the global economy today, here's what might strike you: Apple is an organization almost singularly unlike the massed hordes and would-be contenders to the throne that surround it. It is the one company seemingly tuned to hit the revolutionary apex, not race past the lowest common denominator. So how did Steve — after a legendary decade in the wilderness, exiled from the island of his own creation, watching it turn grey, dull, bland, and colonized, perhaps even lobotomized — rebuild it that way?
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umair_haque steve_jobs apple harvard_business style design innovation

Title says it all.
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The findings add to a growing awareness that manufacturing plays a critical role in driving innovation. Harvard Business School professors David Pisano and Willy Shih argue, for example, that innovation capacity often disappears if a country loses its manufacturing sector, because the knowledge and abilities needed to develop new technologies are often closely linked to the skills and expertise associated with manufacturing (see "Innovation Depends on a Robust Manufacturing Sector"). Fuchs builds on this idea by showing that regional manufacturing differences can cause the most advanced technologies to fall by the wayside. "Manufacturing locations can affect the evolution of technology globally," she says.
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mit_techreview manufacturing erica_fuchs globalization innovation

Self-explanatory title. Vivek Wadhwa's point about people is something that could apply to where I live, too:
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The prerequisite for a regional innovation system is knowledgeable people who have the motivation and ability to start ventures. To succeed, these people need to be connected to one another by information-sharing networks. (...) ...the key drivers of innovation in Norway are the communication channels that local entrepreneurs maintain to the outside world and their open-mindedness toward foreign cultures, change and new ideas. Companies that are “regionally minded” — that maintain ties only with players within the same cluster — are four times less likely to innovate than the globally connected. The study found that regional and national clusters are “irrelevant for innovation.
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vivek_wadhwa innovation clustering washington_post ecosystems

Must-read article, America... (And Canada is actually even worse, because this economy manufactures very little, basing its wealth on the export of raw resources. Terrible.)
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To illustrate the importance of maintaining a U.S. innovation ecosystem even when an innovation's value isn't apparent immediately, Shih points out that rechargeable batteries didn't seem very important to U.S. companies when the University of Texas licensed lithium-ion technology to Sony two decades ago; hardly anyone in the United States was making consumer electronics. But after Sony introduced the technology in its Walkman in 1991, other Asian consumer-electronics companies also developed rechargeable-battery technology. Later, as rechargeable batteries became an important component of laptop computers, the battery makers honed their skills with manufacturers, which in turn transferred expertise with small consumer electronics into building laptops in Asia. Today, with hybrid and electric cars on the rise, manufacturers in Japan, Korea, and China have a big head start on the technology behind those vehicles.
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mit_techreview technology innovation economy david_pisano willy_shih

One of the best, most thought-provoking articles on education I've read in a long time, by Maria H. Andersen. Brilliant, brilliant insights and suggestions...

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Mass education is adequate, as long as students are highly motivated to learn and get ahead of their peers. In developing countries, a student who is successful in education will be able to climb the ladder of personal economic prosperity faster than those who are not successful. But in industrialized countries, where prosperity is the norm, an education does not necessarily translate into a significantly higher standard of living. In these countries, there is no longer a large economic incentive to learn, so the motivation to learn must become intrinsic. As we redesign en masse education, we must address learners’ intrinsic motivations, which means that education must circle back to being personal again.
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maria_h_andersen education trends futurismo innovation disruption socialtheory socratic socrait

Part of a series on "The $300 House," this piece is by Seth Godin, addressing the problem of marketing to the world's poor. Don't scoff - Godin's piece is a real eye-opener. If we agree that innovation (and innovative approaches & thinking) is (are) critical in solving poverty, then we have to realize that it's those in poverty who have to be convinced to *adopt* innovation. Godin shows why this is difficult, and offers suggestions for overcoming the problem. Excerpt:
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If you're a tenth-generation subsistence farmer, your point of view, about risk, about life, is different from someone working in an R&D lab in Palo Alto. The Moral Economy of the Peasant makes this argument clearly: Imagine standing in water up to your chin. The only thing you're prepared to focus on is whether or not the water is going to rise four more inches. Your penchant for risk is close to zero. One mistake and the game is over.

As a result, it's extremely difficult to sell innovation to this consumer. The line around the block to get into the Apple store for a gadget is an insane concept in this community. A promise from a marketer is meaningless, because the marketer isn't part of the town, the marketer will move away, the marketer is, of course, a liar.

Let me add one more easily overlooked point: Western-style consumers have been taught from birth the power of the package. We see the new Nano or the new Porsche or the new convertible note on a venture deal and we can easily do the math: [new thing] + [me] = [happier]. We've been taught that an object can make our lives better, that a purchase can make us happier, that the color of the Tiffany's box or the ringing of a phone might/will bring us joy.

That's just not true for someone who hasn't bought a new kind consumer good in a year or two or three or maybe ever. As a result, stores in the developing world tend to be stocked with the classic, the tried and true, because people buy refills of previous purchases, not the new. You can't simply put something new in front of a person

seth_godin harvard_business $300_house poverty innovation marketing tribes

Lots of great ideas here:

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In its most naked form, 'open source' place-making is about taking a development site, establishing a very basic planning framework for it, triggering population of the site and then through its unfolding occupation form a forward plan for its development.

(...)

A second dimension to open source place-making is to innovate the management of a neighbourhood, prioritise opportunities for tenants to benefit from short leases, self-build and self-management of the way in which they relate to buildings; also support different terms of trade and promote internal markets in goods and services on a barter basis - perhaps even follow a model by which tenants provide services-in-kind to external grant funders of a site, in lieu of rent.

(...)

...be a talent scout, recruit and capitalise upon its momentum.

On one level, 'open source' place-making is asking the development sector to open its mind up to a different way of thinking about design and site assembly: what tech people call interaction design.

Start to see physical space as a form of sovereign real estate - much like a web page - who's personality unfolds through the involvement of users - and see activity on site as a sequence of what geeks call transient interrupts that develop, die or mutate in to profitable enterprises over time.

(...)

On another level, 'open source' place-making is a plea: to slim down bureaucracy, open up development to taking an equity stake in the customer and reflect the fact that in an internet economy, people are loyal to data and experience and 'modal switch' between platforms; what's more, maximise opportunities to win a return on investment in certain markets or market-makers: such as social enterprise, independent retail, consumers who live in online, as well as offline spaces, and those who want autonomy.

(...)

urban development has wound right down, with producers and consumers of land either deleveraging or starved of bank credit.

You don't need to be Ben Bernanke of the Federal Reserve t

open_source placemaking urban_design david_barrie innovation

Article about Sean Parker (who is portrayed in Aaron Sorkin's film, The Social Network, as a jerk):
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...Parker, a svelte, wavy-maned clotheshorse, is a uniquely quirky figure in the annals of 21st-century business. At age 30, he is already worth close to a billion dollars, thanks mostly to the cache of Facebook stock he still owns. An autodidact who barely finished high school, he is nonetheless almost painfully cerebral. A sickly child whose asthma sometimes landed him in the hospital, he devoured books from a very young age; his father, a U.S.-government oceanographer, began teaching him programming at age seven. There is hardly a topic—literary, political, medical, or technological—about which he cannot offer an informed and nuanced opinion in his rapid-fire patter. (Don’t get him started on Ben Franklin’s role as a media pioneer.)

Most of all, he turns his knowledge and instincts toward Internet business strategy as a way, he says, of “re-architecting society. It’s technology, not business or government, that’s the real driving force behind large-scale societal shifts.” Indeed, Parker has such a superb track record for predicting where technology is headed (and which type of product and service will appeal to consumers) that companies often invite him to invest simply to tap his brain. “Few people are as smart as he is,” says Facebook’s Zuckerberg, aged 26, who still consults quite frequently with his former partner.
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facebook innovation web2.0 mark_zuckerberg internet aaron_sorkin sean_parker vanity_fair hollywood

Larry Lessig nails it in this brilliant review of Aaron Sorkin's film, The Social Network. Read the whole article, especially the 2nd part where Lessig (a lawyer/ professor of law) spells out how the legal establishment is completely missing the point.
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Zuckerberg faced no such barrier [of entry into a market, as the makers of Nantucket Nectars did]. For less than $1,000, he could get his idea onto the Internet. He needed no permission from the network provider. He needed no clearance from Harvard to offer it to Harvard students. Neither with Yale, or Princeton, or Stanford. Nor with every other community he invited in. Because the platform of the Internet is open and free, or in the language of the day, because it is a “neutral network,” a billion Mark Zuckerbergs have the opportunity to invent for the platform. And though there are crucial partners who are essential to bring the product to market, the cost of proving viability on this platform has dropped dramatically. You don’t even have to possess Zuckerberg’s technical genius to develop your own idea for the Internet today. Websites across the developing world deliver high quality coding to complement the very best ideas from anywhere. This is a platform that has made democratic innovation possible—and it was on the Facebook platform resting on that Internet platform that another Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes, organized the most important digital movement for Obama, and that the film’s petty villain, Sean Parker, organized Causes, one of the most important tools to support nonprofit social missions.

The tragedy—small in the scale of things, no doubt—of this film is that practically everyone watching it will miss this point. Practically everyone walking out will think they understand genius on the Internet. But almost none will have seen the real genius here. And that is tragedy because just at the moment when we celebrate the product of these two wonders—Zuckerberg and the Internet—working together, policymakers are conspiring ferociously with old

facebook innovation larry_lessig law copyright internet web2.0 tnr mark_zuckerberg aaron_sorkin sean_parker

Provocative, interesting talk by Johanna Blakley on copyright (absence thereof) in the fashion industry, and what that might mean for IP reform in other fields.
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Copyright law's grip on film, music and software barely touches the fashion industry ... and fashion benefits in both innovation and sales, says Johanna Blakley. At TEDxUSC 2010, she talks about what all creative industries can learn from fashion's free culture.
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If you have access to fast broadband, your friends all work online and it is easy to find venture capital, then you are in a digital hub. And you're not in Canada. Our country trails the world when it comes to building these centres of digital innovation. In this episode of "Our Digital Future - Digital Hubs", leading voices from Canada's digital community discuss the characteristics of a good digital hub and the investment needed to create intelligent communities for tomorrow's digital economy. The episode features: Mark Kuznicki, a leader in the field of citizen and community engagement; Sarah Prevette, founder of Sprouter.com, an online community for entrepreneurs; Jesse Brown, journalist and an influential voice in the world of social media; and, Bill Hutchison, the Executive Director of Intelligent Communities for Waterfront Toronto and a renowned business and social entrepreneur.
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Slow down please, this is Canada! Canada's digital networks are some of the slowest in the world, running between one hundred to a thousand times slower than other countries in the developed world. In this episode of "Our Digital Future - The Need for High-Speed", Bill Hutchison, Executive Director of Intelligent Communities for Waterfront Toronto describes the sorry state of our digital infrastructure, stressing the need for major investments in advanced broadband networks. Bill Hutchison is a renowned business and social entrepreneur. He has been a founder of four successful business start-ups and CEO of three corporate turnarounds. As a social entrepreneur he has been the founding chair or director of ten industry and social consortia and charitable foundations.
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canada innovation broadband internet video tvo

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Today's Reality

But now the alarm bells are ringing as Canada has been falling down the international leadership staircase in terms of the innovation and application of technology in ways that could continue to improve the quality of life for all citizens. A recent study indicates that Canada:
* Has some of the poorest high-speed internet service in the developed world;
* Ranked 22nd out of 30 countries against measures such as broadband adoption, network capacity and pricing; and
* Ranked 16th on broadband adoption.

Please take a few minutes to view the TVO video on the impact of Canada being way behind the rest of the world in terms of our digital economy and broadband infrastructure. Canada's speed is 1/100 to 1/1000 slower than 20 major competitors.
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canada innovation broadband internet

Great article that explains how Canada's taxation system destroys innovation and grass-roots ownership, even under the new Budget 2010 revisions, which were touted by Finance Minister Flaherty as supportive of investment & innovation...

Brief extract below, but click through to read the whole thing.

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As an illustration of the dire consequences of the proposed new changes in stock option taxation, we have had to halt the IPO process for a very successful Canadian technology company. Under the proposed new rules, if all 300+ employees exercised all of their vested options at once, post-IPO, the company would have an immediate withholding tax liability of about $20 million. This is a new, open-ended and completely uncontrollable contingent liability. If we happened to get “irrationally exuberant” technology markets again, the liability could be multiples of $20 million.
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canada taxation innovation economic_development techvibes

When I read this pithy article by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, I found useful parallels between an evolutionary take on economics and innovation, and what she describes as the 15-minute advantage. That is, if you're too far ahead of the curve, you may make an evolutionary (or innovative) leap, but it won't "take" - it will be like a leap from one peak to another, without successful landing. Instead, you need those increments that allow successful leaps.

The Woody Allen backdrop story is such a great lead-in - makes her underlying idea very graspable, too. Moss Kanter lists 8 characteristics of innovation, some of which are straight out of our understanding of successful evolution:
1. Tria-able; 2. Divisible; 3. Reversible; 4. Tangible; 5. Fits prior investments; 6. Familiar; 7. Congruent with future direction; 8. Positive publicity value.

economics innovation competitiveness harvard_business rosabeth_moss_kanter evolution

Timely.
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Immelt exhorted Americans to give up the notion that the U.S. can make it as a services-led, consumption-based economy, where "a mortgage broker is pulling down $5 million a year while a Ph.D. chemist is earning $100,000."

The country must refocus on manufacturing and R&D and must strive to be a leading exporter, he said. He announced that GE was opening an advanced manufacturing and software technology center outside of Detroit near the headquarters of Visteon, the auto parts maker that recently sought bankruptcy protection.

Coincidentally, "Restoring American Competitiveness," an article in the July-August special issue of the Harvard Business Review makes the same case about the importance of manufacturing. It warns that the erosion of the U.S. manufacturing base is seriously undermining the country's ability to innovate. (So much for the idea that we can succeed by letting other countries manufacture the products we invent!)

In his speech, Immelt offered a vision for how the business and government together can revive the economy and solve grand challenges such as clean energy and affordable health care. "We should welcome the government as a catalyst for leadership and change," he said, calling for a "real public-private partnership." (This from a self-described "Republican and free market guy.")
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This article fits nicely with Konrad Yakabuski Globe & Mail article, "Canada's Innovation Gap." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/canadas-innovation-gap/article1203108/

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Insightful (and often cutting) article on the status of innovation in Canada. Stephen Downes responded in a blog post, http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2009/07/innovation-in-canada.html, basically agreeing, saying that we need a bit of free market and a bit of government direction as well, and that we (Canadians) need to wean ourselves from our corporate overlords.

In an aside, the G&M journalist (Konrad Yakabuski) notes that Canadians already log more work hours than Americans and are workaholics compared to Europeans - who innovate more and therefore, because they work smarter, don't need to work harder. As it happens, I was just wondering about Canadians and partying/ sociability over the beginning of July (what with Canada Day and Independence Day). Canadians are far less social than Americans, in my experience. For Canadians, sociability and partying means getting drunk - it always has, for as long as I can remember. Americans in this respect are actually the kinder, gentler people. Is it because of work?

innovation canada globeandmail productivity technology resources economic_development konrad_yakabuski