Is the U.S. suffering from Propeller Head Syndrome?
Monday, March 13th, 2006
In the Sydney Morning Herald, Steve Burrell warns that traditional thinking about innovation may lead nations down the wrong path when it comes to serious thinking about a national innovation initiative. After summarizing the findings of a new Business Council of Australia report, Burrell points out that innovation should be about more than just spending additional money on R&D and thinking up new tax credits to encourage companies to hire scientists in white lab coats. In a worst case scenario, this type of narrow thinking about innovation inevitably leads to Propeller Head Syndrome:
“The word “innovation” conjures up images of people in white lab coats and dreams of Australia as a sort of high-tech antipodean Finland, with Nokia factories springing up across the land. And the policies put forward to nurture it have also tended to be seen as an extension of science and technology policy.
But as a new Business Council of Australia study points out, misconceptions and narrow thinking about what innovation actually is have led to confusion about what the policies needed to encourage it really involve. It suggests that creating an Innovation Nation is more about getting right the basics of education, infrastructure, tax, workplace relations, competition policy and business regulation than just thinking up new research and development (R&D) tax breaks. Innovation is not just about computers and people in lab coats. Sure, advanced technology and invention are important aspects of it, and should be encouraged, but it goes far beyond this.”
In other words, stop thinking solely in terms of technological innovation. Instead, start thinking about business model innovation and business process innovation:
“[Innovation] can involve the use of any sort of knowledge within businesses to add value, create wealth and serve the consumer better. It does not even need to be new knowledge. It can involve applying or recombining existing knowledge or technology in new ways, to improve production processes, make distribution more efficient or recast products or services to take advantage of market openings. It can mean better management or work practices or the creative use of information technology or other capital equipment. (The transformation in the design, production, distribution and selling of goods and services in the last decade brought about by the spread of the internet is good example of this “non-invention” innovation.)”
Taking this argument one step further, I wonder how much of the current “innovation policy” debate in the U.S. is really part of the Propeller Head Syndrome that Steve Burrell mentions? In the U.S., the answer to the innovation question thus far has been to focus on R&D spending, R&D tax credits, and lots o’ new spending for math, science, engineering and computers. But, at a certain point, is it possible to equate additional R&D spending with true innovation? Do we as a nation need to be doing something different?
Tags: Australia innovation innovationpolicy
[image: Hasketh Design]
