Innovation: Crucial to Our Future
Look around you. If you're like me, your life is filled with technology and tools that help you work, live, and play. New devices like iPhones, social networks like Facebook, "breakthrough" pharmaceuticals, and sleek household products are all around us. It seems like innovation in many fields -- from Web 2.0 to personalized medicine -- is accelerating at a rapid pace in the United States, right?
Wrong. In fact, the underlying infrastructure of research, development, and application that produced these marvels -- as well as world-changing innovations like the Internet -- has drastically deteriorated in the U.S. in recent years. The decline of what I call our "Innovation Ecosystem" poses a grave threat to both the economic prosperity of our country and the security of our children's future. The state of innovation is a critical issue that should be getting more attention in the days leading up to the presidential election.
Leading-edge science and technology have been at the foundation of our country's economic growth for more than a century. Significant inventions like the personal computer, cell phones, and the Net have all driven major cycles of our economic growth. Today, more than ever, our role in the future depends on our ability to sustain a culture that supports and promotes the ability to innovate. Along with the rest of the world, the U.S. faces major challenges -- climate change, national security, dependence on oil, and the need for affordable health care -- that threaten our future. Each of these challenges also brings opportunities - if we give innovation the attention it deserves.
Innovation does not just happen. Like a garden, it must be actively nurtured. The once-groundbreaking technologies that today seem commonplace were all built on a strong and deep foundation of investments by business and government in our long-term growth.
In the course of writing my new book, Closing the Innovation Gap, I discovered that the mania for instant gratification that is killing innovation has spread from Wall Street to Washington to Silicon Valley, permeating our culture. Stockholders focus on short-term transactions at the expense of building for the future. Federal agencies like DARPA -- which financed the research I did in the early '70s at Stanford led by Vint Cerf, the father of the Internet -- now demand technologies that can be deployed within months to aid the war effort. Instead of educating our children to become inquisitive about the world around them and have respect for science, we drill them on standardized tests, while scientists are devalued as just another political special-interest group.
"Our culture is telling kids that science isn't cool -- particularly for girls," Sally Ride, the first female astronaut in the US, told me. "When we were growing up, our society put much more emphasis on the importance of science and math, so there was a cultural imperative that created a generation of scientists and engineers. Now that imperative is gone."
We are rapidly losing our advantage in the emerging global economy. Most of these marvelous new products and services, even the iPod, capitalized on pre-existing technologies. We are too focused on incremental innovations, to the detriment of truly disruptive breakthroughs. In the meantime, we are spending and creating value elsewhere, rather than investing in our growth.
There's a disease that afflicts trees called root rot. Infected trees eventually die, but for a long time, they appear to be healthy, with lots of branches and green leaves. Root rot is an apt metaphor for what has happened to America's Innovation Ecosystem as our planning horizons have become focused purely on making things better for today, this quarter, or this year -- with hardly any thought for the fate of future generations.
One of the most crucial roles of a nation's leaders is to foster the right environment for innovation through inspiration, wise funding, and smart policy. Instead, the country has been led into a quagmire of religious ideology and partisan bickering. Science does not belong to the right wing or the left, and the hijacking of science policy by ideologues has had a chilling effect on innovation. The curiosity and openness that helped define the American character have been replaced by fear and apathy. The national trust necessary to build alliances with the rest of the world is gone, along with our willingness to take the economic risks required to make significant breakthroughs.
Reviving sustainable innovation will require sweeping changes at all levels of society -- from the schoolroom, to the boardroom, to the hallways of our nation's capitol. This year will bring a welcome change at the top in Washington. But we need not only a new administration in the White House, we need a new kind of national leadership.
America is used to setting the global agenda, expecting everyone else to follow. Those days are over. Now new ideas travel around the world at the speed of light. Simply because a discovery occurs in a U.S. lab does not mean that we will be the sole beneficiary. A zero-sum view -- assuming that progress in the rest of the world is a loss for us -- only leads to more barriers and stifled possibilities.
As an entrepreneur, I learned early on that you don't need to be the biggest to lead, but you do need to be more agile and know how to leverage the resources around you. We must be prepared to compete with other countries for talent and investment while ensuring that they remain our allies. The rate of innovation is proportional to the level of collaboration and sharing.
As voters, we need to consider which candidates will have the vision, courage, and ability to rally the nation's resources and inspire innovation. That's the kind of leader we will need to reignite the economy and address the major challenges that we and our children will face in the coming decades.
Gary Shapiro: Innovation in America: An Autobahn, or a Suburban Street With Speed Bumps?
My fear is that my son's future won't include the rapid pace of innovation that we have enjoyed in recent years. What if decades roll by and innovation stands still?
Les Leopold: Fear and Looting in America: Innovation or Casino Capitalism?
Banning any derivative product that the average public official can't understand represents a financial innovation with promise.
Joe Trippi: Science You Can Believe In
By investing and believing in innovation we will overcome our current economic woes and ensure our prosperity for decades to come.
Tom Donohue: Innovation Is Essential to Economic Growth
America's ability to compete in a global economy and create 21st century jobs for our children depends on the ability to lead in innovation. And the key to innovation is intellectual property.
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Decline started when Ronald Reagan was Calif. governor and prop. 13 was implemented.
Boy those rethuglicans were real effective at running the country into the ground since then.
I am amazed at the lack of interest in science and technology in our country. Especially by women. I graduated in electrical engineering as one of only 6 women out of 107 electrical engineering students in 1988 (about half of the total students were Asian, Indian, or Middle-eastern). The ratios have not changed much, if at all.
For me science is comforting. It can be used to make us safer from terrorism, provide new and improved alternatives for producing and delivering energy, explains the world in non-paranormal terms,... and saves us time and money.
14 questions regarding science and technology were prepared by scientists for the presidential candidates to respond to. Only Obama has responded so far...read them at...
sciencedebate08.com
Good article. You are "right on."
Here's an overview of a detailed plan for "re-innovating" America.
"Civilian Innovation Corps"
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/rogertoennis/gGxypL
I have more details worked out. Challenge, as always, is getting people who have the power/wealth/visibility, that I don't, to pay attention.
If you, dear reader of my comment post, are interested in helping email me at gmail.comat)gmail.com.
Also see Tom Friedmans new blog post on this topic on NYtimes.com at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/opinion/07friedman.html?ex=1378440000&en=213dd44bc95d8011&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Here's hoping,
Roger
I have been fortunate to spend a few weeks each year in Hong Kong. My first visit in 2003 was shock. I found so many innovative applications in this ancient world, I was a bit confused. I quickly learned that we (the US) had slipped to complacent status.
It seems that since the present administration has disrespected and demeaned science and our nation has stayed back in the 20th century. We are spoon feed in dribbles each step of progress while a great deal of the world has refined our technology to be useful for a vast majority of their population.
See this is where the competing-for-the-top-dog "Great Man of Science" game, which ignores the broad requirement for lots of innovation at the ordinary problem solving level has created some problems. Yes, we have the "Greatest" -- as competed for by the privileged few, the fortunate sons.
The competition paradigm has discouraged women not because we are fundamentally different, but because we have just a few more perceived disadvantages for the competition to prey on: we're "going to quit and have children anyway." We're "not really dedicated or suited by nature to it." etc. All charges made behind our backs, constantly eroding our status and standing, disemploying and underemploying us, regardless of our actual accomplishments.
Be that as it may, the present administration has disrespected and demeaned science in spades, see The Republican War On Science http://www.waronscience.com/home.php and made even the priveleged few decidedly uncomfortable, if not totally unemployed. So perhaps -- PERHAPS -- they can evolve a conscience and some empathy for the damage to their profession partisan competition and infighting has caused.
To rebuild US Scientific and Technological pre-eminence will require first dismantling this Republican War on Science, and second dismantling this 'Great Man of Science' paradigm and evolving a more cooperative approach to solving our problems.
That engaging fully half the talent available by actually enforcing Title IX would have to be part and parcel of this effort goes without saying.
What "innovative applications" did you find there that you didn't find here? I'm not aware of any.
So .... you went to Hong Kong for a few weeks and came to the conclusion that the US has become "complacent" and that all the innovation was there in Hong Kong? Brilliant analysis. What places have you been to in the United States by the way?
"We must be prepared to compete with other countries for talent and investment while ensuring that they remain our allies."
This phrase in the article stopped me like a brick wall.
This is one of the many attitudes the US needs to change. Attracting to itself the best and brightest of other countries and the investment capital of other countries merely impoverishes them intellectually and financially, and all to often the returns on those investments are held by the small minority of rich in those countries and is squandered in expensive cars, fashions and jewels which does nothing for the impoverished mass of the population leading to instability and bloodshed.
The US needs to invest in and support the talent in other countries, reaping the financial returns on the capital while helping those other countries grow richer in talent, wealth and opportunity.
Yes, Science Education is key -- but interestingly, they cannot seem to enforce Title IX for Science Education for Women and Girls, and without that enforcement, they're throwing out fully HALF the talent.
Currently, science eduction is based on competition and a macho "Great Man of Science" model, rather than on scientists, engineers, policy makers and citizens coming together to solve problems.
Science and engineering in the universities and national labs today is all about proving who's smartest. It's all status. The question is who brings in the bucks, who gets the hottest chicks cycling through their labs to demonstrate that they have "extra" to spend on "diversity."
It's about social dominance amongst a bunch of narcissistic privileged sons.
Innovation, as currently practiced, is not about service to humanity, it is about showing off.
Until Science and Engineering are cast as a path of service, it will continue to turn off women and girls -- because we care more about what kind of world we are creating for our offspring.
And until Science and Engineering are opened up to more women and girls, scientific and engineering innovation and achievement will continue to be just so much fancy plumage for the male of the species.
So Title IX enforcement will not only bring in the half the talent that's been wasted over all these years, but it will also necessarily change the whole point of engaging in these activities to a more humane and productive path.
If innovation is like gardening, we need to focus on the soil. The only way to change society is to build the new one inside the shell of the old.
Looking at what has happened in our country and around the world over the last 8 years, I think it is reasonable to conclude that Republicans really do hate our country, and our doing their best to destroy it. Either that, or they are really, really, instructionally challenged.
As the US becomes more diverse it becomes weaker. Schools were thrity laguages are spoken: insane.
How about getting one "laguage" right instead of bemoaning "thrity".
Just asking...
icechaos, you have it backward:
Diversity is a sign of health. It actually increases innovation.
A diverse ecology is strong. And, whether you realize it or not, a multiformity of language--like a farmer's wisdom of maintaining a variety growing crops--prevents stagnation and the dangers of a monolithic reality.
Imagine the bureaucratic nightmare of something like a World Post Office!
Diversity promotes and sustains a nimble and responsive planetary nervous system.
knerd,
there is pretty convincing evidence that suggests increasing levels of ethnic diversity decreases something called "social cohesion": reducing trust & commitment to public goods, etc. much of what makes the U.S. South different is that for most of its history, it was the most ethnically diverse area of the country. not surprisingly, this area has lower levels of commitment to public-goods related measures, like universal health care, taxation, etc.
more broadly, ethnic homogeneity increases the likelihood of welath creation & stable societies, whereas diverse countries suffer from greater levels of instability (northern ireland, sri lanka, ruwanda...)
tell me what you think.
Innovation and manufacturing go hand in hand. You can not have one without the other. Most of the great innvoations of the 20th century we take for granted came from our manufacturing base. Manufacturing is the great engine for innovation. And the way to get maximum shared benefit from innovation is to not only invent those products but also produce them
Unfortunately in this world of "free" markets and "free" trade we are rapidly scuttling good old fashioned yankee inginuity. Sending our manufacturing technology and infrastructure overseas also send the driver of innovation and R&D overseas. Little wonder we are seeing erosion of our technological edge as we see the hollowing out of our manudfacturing base.
The growing economies of the world like India and China realize the connection between mfg prowess and technological advantage and are aggressively investing in the infrastructure and technology for manufacturing, while we in the US are totally asleep at the wheel with no coherent industrial policy and in many cases actively promoting the destruction of our innovation engines with bad trade and economic policy. The emerging economies are doing it on the strength of their manufacturing base - not their financial "innovations'.
A significant portion of the manufacturing jobs that have gone overseas are in textiles, toys, and auto-parts, and there is very little innovation in those sectors. Most innovation has come in the American pharma and biotech industries and over at Google, Microsoft, and Apple right here in the good ole USA. Components for many tech devices may come from abroad, but those are low margin commodity type businesses, especially memory. From what I can tell, China has not been innovative in anything. They merely produce what the US tells with the machine tools we provide for them.
No innovation in toys or autoparts gimme a break
Auto parts are a high value activity requiring machining and assembly much of it advanced - same with computers and electronics
Again you continue to show how little you understand manufacturing and its link to innovation and prosperity
"From what I can tell, China has not been innovative in anything. They merely produce what the US tells with the machine tools we provide for them."_______________________
Yep - just what everyone used to say about Japan too. NAd as their manufacturing prowess grew so too did their innovative prowess - just as is currently happening in China
Innovation and mfg go hand in hand - you can not have one without the other
A big chunk of manufacturing jobs moved overseas are in electronics & computers. How many hard-drives, CD/DVD drives, motherboards ... TVs, VCRs, hardware of any kind are manufactured in the US?
We used to export machine tools, but now they're made over seas as well ... of course, they are manufactured using the tools we already exported, but they'll be replaced eventually.
And then there's all the "knowledge" jobs that were supposed to pay good money and replace the old manufacturing jobs. They've all been exported too.
Innovation don't do a damn bit of good if all the work using those innovations is "outsourced" and "off shored".
The US used to be a leader of machine tools, New England was considered the world headquarters for machine tools as was South Bend In and Cinci, OH. All oif the machine tool industry has gone offshore except for a few specialty players. The machine tool industry in the US is a mere shadow of its former self of what used to be one the US's premier technologies. Pretty sad and dangerous to not be able to produce our own machinery
The solution to most of the world's problems, is human-powered electricity.
That is innovation in its most practical terms, and the technology exists.
Links?
Innovation is like mom and apple pie. No one I have ever met disapproves or discourages innovation. However, it always comes down to whether it is my innovation or my competitor’s innovation.
The daily science sites I read are endlessly reciting new discoveries. We have more information than we know what to do with.
As I am interested in areas of scholarship, I am enthusiastic about living in an age of great scholarly accomplishment. Too bad there is no scientific or scholarly answer to ending war, as that is what we need. All the rest is saleswo/men peddling their wares/books. A nanobit of wisdom is worth ten tons of innovation.
reality has a liberal bias.
Why did Ed Rollins on CNN just describe Palin as an "attractive" candidate"? These types of statements should receive the same type of scrutiny as Biden's "clean" comment on Obama. Just what do the Repblicans see in her? Come on!
I like her and I'm a democrat.
But do you like her enough to vote for her? If McCain-Palin gets elected, there is a very good chance that she will end taking over as President. In that case, would you still like her?
You're not alone
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