This is Nick Nichols again, continuing our discussion of technological innovation and what we professionals can do to drive innovative thinking and execution in our organizations.
In commenting on my last post, Geoff Anderson (fellow blogger at The Technology Marketing Center) raised the point that, without a national BIG project, it will be difficult for private institutions to support long term technology development, especially with our current recession-driven emphasis on short term financial results. I agree, but I don't think we will see a commitment to a major technology project, like the Manhattan Project or Apollo, to seed higher levels of technological innovation in the foreseeable future. However, there will be national investments in energy and green technologies, and these will require high levels of innovative development to bring them to market in an economic context. As such, they may be more challenging. The two great national projects had highly focused goals and timelines, which urgently drove technology development, and we all knew when we succeeded. In contrast, the diversity of technological approaches to economical, clean energy supply will result in lots of market activity and testing, out of which will come evolving standards and sources of energy. Also, older technologies will improve with competition. So innovation in these areas of national importance will be pushed more by market forces than national prestige and will be accompanied by greater uncertainly and competitive turbulence. And that brings market and innovation leadership into focus as key challenges for us all in the future.
An outstanding example of a major innovation driven by economic and market forces is the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The use of new materials technology is revolutionary, but high levels of innovative accomplishment are required for EXECUTION (a key part of the innovation equation,): high volume production, new manufacturing techniques, and a global supply system of ever greater complexity and scale. The technologists of Boeing and their global partners are expected to have much broader comprehension of the multi functional aspects of creativity. technology development, and execution to contribute to the success of this major innovation.
Although the issue of sustaining a broader culture of innovation is of national importance (see Judy Estrin, "Closing the Innovation Gap", McGraw Hill, for an excellent treatment of the national problem and how we can address it), we want to focus on how, as technical professionals and practitioners, we can increase and align our own innovation capabilities and value to contribute more influentially to reenergizing sustainable industrial innovation. That is where the need for a personal agenda comes in.
There is a rich body of knowledge, part of which was originally supported by the big national projects, that covers the conditions and approaches managers should be aware of and employ in managing technology and in leading innovative individuals. The rising use of global innovative teams, the organizational issues in creating innovative environments, decision making under market and technological uncertainty, how to handle risk, discriminating between disruptive and incremental innovation, balancing long term development and short term problem solving, strategic marketing, critical functions for innovative product development - these are some of the perspectives and areas of skill development that technologists should master in this innovative era that we are in. With ever shortening product life cycles, new and revolutionary technologies based on biotechnology and nanotechnology research, and global competition, more will be expected from technical professionals to be more creative, master customer-facing techniques, develop their skill in the functions of project and product execution,and yet broaden their technical understanding of new areas of science.
Each month this Leader's blog series will explore one of the building blocks of professional development critical to the contribution of the technical professional, whether a practising technologist or business manager, to innovative enterprises. To help you develop your own person agenda of innovative thinking and understanding, stay tuned, and give me your own thoughts and experience.
Next month we'll get started working our way through the list of personal skills development topics and objectives, so until then....
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