What does the U.S. Think of Innovation?

February 17, 2011 By Aminda

An interesting project, called Advise the Advisor, was launched by the White House this month. It’s billed as a way to help senior staff at the White House stay connected to the American people. The process starts when a short video presentation is posted on-line by a senior staff member who outlines an issue that currently has the attention of the White House. They then ask a series of related questions to which they would like responses to. 

In the first video, posted the week of November 7, David Plouffe, Senior Advisor to the President, asked for feedback on how American innovation affects communities and what obstacles to innovation are seen. The thousands of comments were quickly reviewed and Plouffe had a response prepared early this week. So what does America think of Innovation? The major themes were:

1. Education is the Key to Innovation

2. We Need High-Speed Internet

3. Government Can Be an Obstacle to Innovation

4. Enthusiasm for Clean Energy Innovation

Does this really capture what American’s are saying? One innovation blogger and technology business owner posted his response to the White House. His well-constructed answer centered around flaws in the patent system and suggestions on what could provide fixes.

Plouffe’s summary report did include a brief mention that people complained about how the government, and particularly patent policy, got in the way of innovation:

Many respondents felt that too much government regulation stifled businesses and innovators and that the patent process and intellectual property laws are broken.

Ironically, Plouffe’s response then went on to outline how President Obama was already planning to reform the patent system.  Fixes which contradict the blogger’s suggestions and in his opinion, do not only fail to fix the system but in some cases make it much worse – something he pointed out clearly in his suggestion.

The way Plouffe hyped President Obama’s plan to “win the future by out-innovating, out-educating and out-building the rest of the world” one can’t help but wonder why they need America’s help dealing with innovation in the first place when they seem to already have it figured out. What do you think about this program, is it a legitimate attempt to use crowdsourcing towards generating innovation and improvement? Or is it nothing but a public relations tool?

 


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