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The Innovation Fallacy, Interlude

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In fact, the world still looks to the United States for innovation. In a recent survey of venture capitalists completed by Deloitte, no other other country in the world even came close to being the world’s leader in innovation.

global innovation map

  1. A “survey of venture capitalists”? I imagine that they would be drawing on a very specific definition of “innovation”, one that might not bear any resemblance to the actual definition – and does this mean that where there are no venture capitalists, there is no innovation?
  2. It’s obvious that innovation is linked closely to particular political, economic and social systems, and that the US has an advantage – but isn’t that particular definition of innovation the one mandated by those systems?
  3. If the main vehicle for spreading innovation is the free market, what happens when it’s the mania for innovation that brings a key pillar of that market to its knees? How meaningful is it to talk about being a world leader in innovation in a globalised world, if that innovation is ring-fenced for commercial advantage?

The more I think about innovation, the more questions I have.

(HT: Enterprise Resilience Management Blog, via Global Dashboard.)

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Written by Paul Currion

November 30th, 2008 at 9:10 pm

Posted in Innovation

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