- excerpt from The Pirates Dilemma, of which I am still going through, because I am trying to test out my tolerance for new reading habits, what with the audio books, pdf books and what not!

I decided to write on this topic, simply because innovation has been a recurring theme amongst a lot of material that I have encountered lately.
I was listening to the very charismatic leader of the Fellowship of Inventors on the 25th of June, and the notion of organizational fluidity really excited me. Being able to assemble teams of people of varying expertise for short innovative projects, pulling them together, and then, letting them return to their “mother” organization is not really done much here. But think of the possibilities!

I also paid a visit to the Microsoft Innovation Center, where their evangelistic team repeatedly emphasized the importance of software as a driving factor for any technological magic in the future. And there were some interesting things going on in there, I saw the 3d version of an application that emulated Google’s street view, the Silverlight technology in action, as well as a video documenting the touch screen technology that was unveiled some time ago.

Interesting, but I disagree that software is everything, and incidentally, after reading this, maybe you might too. For me, it’s always been about the talent and people behind. It is about making sure that your message is communicated across and it becomes something that people can feel and identify with.

I was a huge Star Wars fan a couple of years ago, so I remember when George Lucas had to hold off making Episodes 1, 2 and 3 because the “technology he needed wasn’t quite there yet”. Well, he did get the films made in the end, but they never quite achieved the same cult status as the original Episodes of 4,5 and 6, did they? Something was missing. So yes, while software and technology are important, you do not require it to create magic.

I guess the final issue really is, so how do you get things going? You can check out this PDF manifesto for some good pointers. Ironically, most of the points mentioned there on innovation are nothing all that innovative, but most books effectively sell hope to people, just worded differently.
I also like how Mitch Ditkoff substantiates his points.

A couple of friends and I were musing about the prospects of Singapore’s future. In due time, whatever advantage we might have in manufacturing, efficiency, and the likes will be lost to the next cheapest, fastest competitor(s).
What would we be left with then?
We need to encourage people to think. One thing that stood out for me during the Microsoft site visit was how some of the students candidly admitted that they had been “forced” to go for the trip, and hence, their presence. I would have been pretty discouraged if I were their lecturer, or the speaker for that matter. How else can we cultivate a spirit of learning?