Posted by: Michael Arndt on March 08, 2010
We're a month away from publishing our Most Innovative Companies ranking for 2010, dear readers. Let's see if your opinion matches those in our survey of top-level execs around the globe. Who do you think will top this year's list? And who do you think actually deserves to be No. 1? Also, name a newcomer that has earned a slot in the Top 25.
To refresh your memory, here's 2009's list. I've put an asterisk after companies that were honored in our first ranking, in 2005. The 2010 ranking comes out on April 8.
1. Apple*
2. Google*
3. Toyota Motor*
4. Microsoft*
5. Nintendo
6. IBM*
7. Hewlett-Packard
8. Research in Motion*
9. Nokia*
10. Wal-Mart Stores*
11. Amazon.com*
12. Procter & Gamble*
13. Tata
14. Sony*
15. Reliance Industries
16. Samsung Electronics*
17. General Electric*
18. Volkswagen
19. McDonald's
20. BMW*
21. Walt Disney
22. Honda Motors
23. AT&T
24. Coca-Cola
25. Vodafone
Posted by: Michael Arndt on March 03, 2010
Once upon a time—actually it was just last year—the U.S. was the world innovation champion, according to an annual report by INSEAD and the Confederation of Indian Industry. In this year's study, the nation slumps to 11th place. Perhaps even more surprising is the new No. 1: Iceland.
Soumitra Dutta, an INSEAD professor of business and technology, who oversaw the survey, theorizes that the rankings show that, as in so much else, size matters. But in this case it's the smaller the better.
He tells me that having easy access to a big marketplace still makes it easier for innovators to profit from their inventions. Would the iPod or the iPhone have been such big hits if Apple had been based in, say, Iceland? But the Internet is turning the entire world into one big market, to which everyone everywhere has access, he says. Also, it appears that smaller, homogeneous countries can unite to support policies, institutions, and infrastructure that promote innovation—in the developed world, at least.
Size certainly makes a difference in the 2010 Global Innovation Index report. The most-populous land in the Top 10 is the Netherlands, with 16.4 million people. It finishes in eighth place. Several of the biggest nations in the developed world cluster just below the U.S. Japan is 13, with Britain at 14, and Germany at 16. Of the so-called BRIC giants in emerging markets, China comes out best, at 43. Trailing are India (56), Russia (64), and Brazil (68).
This year's report, financed by Canon India and released on March 3, evaluates 132 countries. Researchers used data from a number of sources, including the World Economic Forum, the World Bank, and the UN, to gauge innovation inputs—things such as education and business climate—as well as outputs to quantify scientific and creative advances.
The U.S. drops out of the Top 10 because it isn't sufficiently providing many of the inputs or what the study calls "pillars of innovation." It ranks 22 in political environment and 21 in regulatory environment. It ranks 22 in K-12 education, 22 in technology infrastructure, and 24 in exports and employment. "The U.S. is unable to create a coherent public agenda," Dutta tells me on the phone from India.
So where does the U.S. score best? In market and business sophistication, which includes access to capital and openness to foreign competition and where it rises to second and third.
Iceland, by comparison, falls below the U.S. in market and business sophistication—no surprise, says the report, given the complete collapse of Iceland's banking industry. But it outshines the U.S. in education and infrastructure. Iceland comes in fourth overall, for instance, in per capita mobile phone subscribers. Its general infrastructure is the world's best.
Here's the Top 10, with 2009's rankings in parentheses:
1. Iceland (20)
2. Sweden (3)
3. Hong Kong (12)
4. Switzerland (7)
5. Denmark (8)
6. Finland (13)
7. Singapore (5)
8. Netherlands (10)
9. New Zealand (27)
10. Norway (14)
Posted by: Michael Arndt on February 19, 2010
What's that old saying, actions speak louder than words? Boeing Chairman and CEO James McNerney stepped onto the soapbox on Feb. 19 to decry the quality of U.S. education, warning that the nation is producing too few STEM graduates—science, technology, engineering, and math—to compete against China, India, and "places in the Middle East." Borrowing a term, he added in a speech in Chicago to alumni of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management that the U.S. faces an "innovation deficit."
After McNerney finished his remarks, in which he also challenged the Obama Administration to grant investment tax breaks and push harder for more free trade pacts, I got an email news alert that Boeing had sent layoff notices to another 1,000 employees. And guess what sorts of workers the company is firing? Four out of five are STEM workers in the aircraft maker's engineering, operations, and technology unit. They're the latest in a series of layoffs that will exceed 10,000, according to the company.
A Boeing spokesman confirmed the news report. He also told me that me that the new cuts come primarily in IT support. But he said that while these workers are no longer needed, Boeing is continuing to hire STEM-skilled applicants in R&D, and in the U.S.
In his speech, McNerney said: "We face a global skill shortage. The problem is growing acute in the U.S. We face a skill shortage, not a labor shortage." There may be 1,000 Boeing employees who could come up with a way to solve that problem.
Posted by: Helen Walters on February 15, 2010
Last year, Bill Gates caused a stir by releasing mosquitoes into the audience at the TED conference. His aim: to bring to life the idea of malaria as a scourge of the modern world. This year, he set free some fireflies to highlight a new theme: energy and climate change.
Gates, it turns out, is going nuclear. He discussed a new venture he's involved in with former Microsoft CTO, Nathan Myhrvold, who now heads up the innovation/invention incubation outfit, Intellectual Ventures.
TerraPower, led by nuclear physicist John Gilleland, is looking to use nuclear power to make electricity. According to company literature, "a wave of fission moving slowly through a fuel core could generate a billion watts of electricity continuously for well over 50 to 100 years without refueling." In other words, power is generated via reactors that run on natural or depleted uranium.
Nuclear is a controversial issue, but Gates outlined his belief that if you can deal with the radiation and safety issues (and yes, it's a big if—any design wouldn't come to market until the "early 2020s", according to TerraPower), its positive potential in terms of carbon footprint and cost put it "in a class of its own," said Gates.
With Gates on board, TerraPower could just prove to be a big deal. As he put it, nuclear power development languished after atomic energy fell from favor, which left some "good ideas lying around". After the advances in technology and supercomputers of the past 20 or so years, some of those ideas can now be virtually prototyped and tested.
In a comment that might have raised eyebrows in those who witnessed the Microsoft Monopolist of yore, Gates called for diversity and competition in the energy industry. "There are fortunately dozens of companies [in the space, but] we need it to be hundreds," he said. "It's best if multiple [companies] succeed because then you can use a mix."
Gates also called for broader U.S. government support, saying that the U.S. should spend $10 billion—or more—on an energy R&D budget. The sum, he added, "is not that dramatic", but it's critical to underwrite innovation in this space. "We need energy miracles," he said. "And in this case we have to drive at full speed and get a miracle within a particular timeline." Given the immovable deadline and potentially catastrophic consequences of inaction, Gates said his quest of "innovating to zero" carbon emissions will brook no half measures. Every player needs to get serious. And, he said, he has.
Image: (c) TED / James Duncan Davidson
Posted by: Helen Walters on February 13, 2010
Hugo Van Vuuren graduated from Harvard, and is currently a fellow at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Born and raised in South Africa, his work considers the intersection and connections between design, technology, and innovation. He co-founded Lebone, a social enterprise working to develop dirt-powered batteries, and he is working at The Laboratory, a newly launched ideas experimentation space at Harvard.
How exactly do you plan to change the world?
Africa is a land of constraints. Constraints inspire creativity. Creative design that solves Africa's problems will also solve problems around the world.
