A commonly asked question during the summer is, “What are you taking to the beach to read?” At the top of my list is Fareed Zakaria’s new book, The Post American World Release 2.0. I had already planned to do a future blog post on the book, but once I saw last week’s NPR interview, “What Does a ‘Post-American World’ Look Like?” I knew the lead paragraph from the interview was too priceless not to share:

“Thirty years ago, the United States dominated the world politically, economically and scientifically. But today?

‘The tallest building in the world is now in Dubai, the biggest factory in the world is in China, the largest oil refinery is in India, the largest investment fund in the world is in Abu Dhabi, the largest Ferris wheel in the world is in Singapore,’ notes Fareed Zakaria. ‘And … more troublingly, [the United States is] also losing [its] key grip on indices such as patent creation, scientific creations and things like that — which are really harbingers of future economic growth.’ ”

You won’t want to miss the entire interview. Here’s the link.

I hope the interview – and his book – will spur increased dialog about the competitiveness debate that I’ve blogged about previously. I welcome your thoughts and comments.

In a recent policy posting I mentioned innovation capacity.  From my perspective, it’s about a company’s capability to innovate in a sustainable, repeatable way.  The operational model required to innovate is different from the operational model typically in play within a company’s organization structure.  Here at Myutiq, we break out innovation capacity into five key functional areas, which we look forward to discussing in upcoming blog posts.  For purposes of today, let’s keep it to a simple set of three:  (1) how companies generate ideas for new, bold initiatives; (2) how companies manage the risk associated with innovation; and, (3) how companies move through the series of steps to implement new initiatives.

Every company will have its own unique set of challenges in building expertise to smoothly manage all the steps along the innovation capacity spectrum. It’s important to map out a process that will integrate well with the business and industry, and then start working through the process, evaluating what’s working and what’s not, so adjustments can be made. Expertise at managing sustainable innovation is built up over time.  Getting great at innovating doesn’t happen overnight.  But no matter how good a company is at “building a process”, the other critical ingredient is an innovation culture.

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The Federal budget battle, with prospects of a government shutdown too close to call for days on end, have made me more and more furious about our inability to keep our eye on the biggest ball of all:  America’s competitiveness in a global economy.  Without it business and economic growth with be stagnant, keeping our country at risk for chronically high unemployment and underemployment.  We can’t just blame the politicians and partisan bickering for the heat of the debate.  They get rewarded with votes at the polls for their self-aggrandizing sound bites.

The real issue comes down to this:  not enough Americans are paying attention to the dangers of lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to innovation.  A study by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) on Global Innovation and Competitiveness found that the United States came in 40th – “dead last” – in the countries and regions studied in terms of progress in developing innovation-based economies.  Where is our passion and fighting spirit to demand that our members of Congress focus on getting us back to #1 so the American dream doesn’t disappear.
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Welcome to Myutiq’s Blog. Spring is here – and it’s time to begin planting new seeds for growth. We at Myutiq are embarking on a journey to explore innovation in new ways. Fresh thinking is a fundamental requirement for innovation to occur. We’ll be sharing resources and insights that we hope will spark big ideas for you and your company. We welcome you to join our journey.

As I think back over our work with clients – and tracking what’s happening with market leaders – its clear to me that its competitive differentiation that can either be the stumbling block to growth or the road to a company’s next big success story. Differentiation – it’s at the heart of why people buy from you and not someone else.

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