Excellent.
Dylan’s touch was right on.

Perhaps innovation and embracing change are 2 sides of the same coin… whose value requires both.

Eric Goldman wrote;

Earl;
Thanks for the clarification. Are you by any chance a Trekkie? StarTrek’s world, or perhaps that should be Gene Roddenberry’s world, envisaged a place where people didn’t work for a living per se, but instead strived to better humanity. They worked on projects which benefited mankind, not themselves directly. The natural progression of where you think this is headed, is out there somewhere – all we need do is boldly go.
I wrote a post about Digital Trust Factors, called it “The Evolution of our Digital Senses”. It addresses this same issue of how we are evolving into different beings and it touches on the issue of where we will end up by asking if it’s the world Asimov imagined when he wrote, “The Naked Sun”. On the planet in that novel, people didn’t leave their homes anymore, but instead sent holographic avatars of themselves as their representative in public.
If you want to contribute to that discussion, you can find the blog at:
http://www.inbound-marketing-automation.ca/blog/2009/11/24/the-evolution-of-our-digital-senses/

Earl;
A well-researched treatise. I enjoyed reading it, but have to admit that I found myself wondering where you were taking this and reached the end without finding out.
If you’re saying that times have changed – who could argue? If you’re saying that these changing times have changed the way we innovate – I think that’s a no-brainer. When the world has changed significantly, the very ways we talk, write, read and even, if you follow the advances in robotics and the way mechanical devices can be manipulated by our minds, even the way we “think” is different.
Small fast-paced organizations should typically be able to innovate more quickly than large ones, although as Steve Jobs and Apple prove, some big players are more apt to be truly innovative than their peers – so size is not a way of measuring innovation reliably.
You don’t define “innovation” and perhaps rightly so as it’s one of those words which we all think we know the meaning of. But in this case, are we really talking about new ideas? Or are we talking about how they spread? If it’s the latter, social media promises to make the spread and discussion of new thoughts and new ways of doing things much quicker and much more direct.
So now I ask you to comment back here and help me to understand the thrust of your article, would you please?

You say that nationalism is a minor, irrelevant issue? State-run companies in China are funding the biggest revoluton in solar energy on the planet. DRAPA, the U.S. DoD research arm, has helped commercialize more marketplace breakthroughs than perhaps any organization in the world — period. The list is very extensive of government organizations that have contributed to the convulsive advancements you refer to.

Good treatment. We (the NVS COOP, anyone in the financial BUSINESS) are all in a war for market share that is raging in the midst of an environmental financial hurricane. The INNOVATION and new methods and techniques available are emerging so fast, (not all are good or adopted, but ALL must be evaluated in order to determine – will you integrate it or not) that an individual participant must expend much resource to simply keep up with the today innovation available that the market might demand tomorrow. You can be working on an innovative project, and look over to see an even newer improved method/technique overtaking you. The worth is assigned by the market as what is adapted by the market(s) you want. But then, it changes again. Hot & Now is Old and Cold next week. Right now, in our arena, there are no established paradigm in terms of how business is conducted, the flow. It is ALL in flux. The best of times, the worst of times. Tremendous opportunity, and peril of getting left. Entry is easy; there are every day many new entrants to the race, some with elaborate systems, many with nothing more than a widget, but perhaps the next ???? So, large and small, the field is full of innovators of various abilities and worth, but all to be reckoned with because to ignore any is perilous – as your article points out, any one of them could make, or break you, either by adopting or failing to do so. There is a way to navigate it all, but that I will keep to myself!

The article provides an interesting philosophical spin on innovation, however “process or incremental” innovation still exists and probably represents at leastt 80% of the innvoation in all companies, compared to radical innovation….those once in a lifetime creations…these are far more rare. Yes, things move faster today, yes we cover more geography, and the time space continuum is forever compressing it seems, but at the end of the day, it is incremental innovation by those who know their work, that truly drives our economy.

In thinking about this, we do know that innovation is liquid and probably at one point in time global. I do get a sense, however, that the U.S. in particular has lost its sense of nationalism but is still less likely to collaborate. More from the point of view of selfishness and the Me generation.
Fran