The Innovation Imperative
11/01/2007
Where does innovation come from, and how can we foster more of it?
That question is becoming critical around the world as every nation faces a transition to a new economic order. The global economy is forcing every industry to squeeze out inefficiencies and meet competition from anywhere in the world. The automobile industry is a wrenching example. Just marshaling capital to take away markets from other nations isn’t enough any more. In many industries, if you aren’t world class, you are out of business. As we become very efficient at making things, the route to prosperity is through new and emerging industries rather than just trying to build a better mousetrap.
That’s why innovators are becoming such a valued resource. Advancing technology offers tremendous potential for creating new industries and transforming traditional ones. But applying technology to the real world in a practical, efficient, profitable way is a tough challenge. Some R&D labs are great at pumping out technical papers and patents, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that prosperity follows.
There are many examples around the world of efforts to stimulate technical innovation. In England, schools have classes aimed at fostering creative problem-solving. Kids get an assortment of pieces and are challenged to shape them into useful gadgets, for example. Singapore set out to become the research center of East Asia, but the nation-state is still struggling to get young technologists to push the envelope. Taiwan gives out awards to companies that create imaginative end-products rather than just doing contract manufacturing and assembly. Hong Kong, before the integration with China, was trying to upgrade its expertise in manufacturing fad gadgets (such as hula hoops), to creating world-class technology of its own. Chinese officials in more recent times have impeded future-oriented R&D by shifting funds to programs aimed at making minor changes in chip designs and other technologies, and then trying to force their versions to become world standards (without much success).
The US has long been a hotbed of innovation, but with the rest of the world pushing hard, it is not at all clear that this leadership will continue. One example of sustained innovation over the decades is the tracking of Moore’s Law by the semiconductor industry, in recent times with the help of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. Out of endless meetings, panel discussions, and technology squabbles, there has come a steady stream of solutions to seemingly intractable roadblocks. The ITRS itself has sometimes proven to be off target in its predictions, yet the process of thrashing out future needs triggers new ideas and directions even as semiconductor fabs find clever ways to stretch previous technology far beyond what had been thought to be its limits.
Collaborative innovation now emerging in our industry provides a useful model for moving forward toward directed invention in many fields, across biotech, medical technology, green energy, system architecture, robotics, and myriad others. While this approach may bring success for solving practical problems, policymakers also need to maintain support for the way-out, blue-sky thinking that can lead in new and unpredictable directions. At the same time, youngsters need to be introduced the thrill of meeting challenges within every field of science and technology.
The US needs to continuously benchmark its own approaches to fostering innovation against those all around the world to find processes and incentives that work best. Otherwise creative leadership will move elsewhere.
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Robert Haavind
Editorial Director