Innovation

We’re still rated highly for Innovation by all the major global benchmarks, but the chinks in our armor are substantial. How can we create a regulatory and economic environment that supports and nurtures innovation and entrepreneurship?

Here we explore six essential questions at the heart of innovation and entrepreneurship. Don’t just read this brief; engage with it, providing feedback along the way. Your voice will shape the conversation, define the issues, and help the community drive meaningful change across our nation.

American creativity and ingenuity isn’t going away even if we keep playing our hand poorly. However it’s really important that we benefit more fully from our ideas and invite as many citizens as possible to join in and contribute. For example, if we continue to build our highest value-added products abroad our competitors will continue to close the gap. If we accept our current level of math and science educational performance we won’t have the people necessary to drive the next wave of innovation. If we continue to be over reliant on a few communities hugging our coastlines for thought leadership and entrepreneurship – prosperity will remain localized rather than more widespread. If we continue to make it so hard for our entrepreneurs and small business owners to thrive fewer good ideas will have a chance to gain traction and produce well-paying jobs.

Sure we’re an innovation leader right now, but our economic foundations need attention and our skill at leveraging American ingenuity for broad-based national benefit leaves substantial room for improvement.

Throughout history innovation has been critical to any nation’s strength, security and prosperity. However, the stakes are going ever higher due to the accelerating rate of technological change. The same forces that can render a global industry leader irrelevant in just a few years (remember when a Blackberry was cool?) are impacting countries as well. The rate of change isn’t quite as dramatic, but a single generation is more than enough time for an entire nation to rise or fall – and trying to stand still just isn’t a viable option. The fact is that millions of jobs that seem secure today won’t exist in a decade and whole industries will be overturned. The only effective way to ride out this level of change is to be a nation forging new industries and therefore generating rewarding new jobs and sources of wealth.

Our national governance process is more focused on the tactical than the strategic – the short term not the long haul. The vast majority of people in government are smart and care deeply about America. They have families too and know getting this right is essential to their children’s future. But the people at their door every day aren’t pushing for this, the people writing their campaign checks aren’t focused on this and the threats they face at the ballot box don’t hinge on this. Business leaders are in a similar boat. They overwhelmingly see this problem and would like to see it addressed. In fact, many have done creative and impactful things on the local and regional level to spur innovation. But when they look at this issue on a national level they feel it’s beyond their reach. And it is – only a coalition that includes government, business and the social sector can gain real traction on this nation’s biggest and most complex economic challenges. And that will never happen until enough mainstream citizens join together and make it a priority – thereby getting it on the radar for all the political and institutional players involved. That’s how change impacting the nation’s interest as a whole has always been achieved in America – and this is no exception.