Think Innovation is Dead? Think Again

June 27, 2013 By IdeaConnection

Grinding the sparksSeth Priebatsch, Chief Ninja and CEO of LevelUp has written a guest post on Forbes.com to counter those who say that innovation is dead.

Although he admits some of their arguments have merit he believes they are wrong.

He starts by discussing the reasons why some pessimists believe that innovation has gone the way of the dinosaurs. Their arguments run along the lines that innovations of old such as toilets, refrigeration and the polio vaccine answered specific needs and solved particular problems.

Today’s innovations such as social media and computer games don’t really solve anything other than alleviating boredom.

Innovation is not Broken

But countered Priebatsch: “Innovation isn’t broken, it’s just different. Rather than tackling today’s problems head-on, as previous generations have done, we’re choosing to rebuild the infrastructures that will enable future innovations to take on these problems.”

He goes on to say that some of today’s problems are just too big to tackle – such as global warming and overcrowded cities – and that what innovation is doing now is designing the tools that will allow us to come up with the solutions.

Priebatsch contends that our problems are outpacing the linear methodology we have to deal with them. This causes an ‘infrastructural innovation gap’.

He adds: “Our generation’s version of putting a man on the moon is to close that infrastructural innovation gap, to come up with the new infrastructures that will ultimately equip us to innovate more quickly, and give us a fighting shot at solving global warming, oil dependence and fending off the alien invasion currently slated for 2037.”

To read the full article including how that infrastructural innovation gap is being closed click here.


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