Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge,...

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 320 pages
• Published by: Free Press
• Edition: 1st Edition October 2, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1416532684
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1416532682
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Weighs: 1 pounds

From Publishers Weekly
Alarmed by the lack of innovation in the United States today, former Harvard Business School professor and current consultant Kao diagnoses the situation, describes best practices, explains how innovation works and puts forth a strategy proposal, all in an attempt to squirt ice water in America's ear. Kao-who has been an entrepreneur, a psychiatrist, an educator and a pianist for Frank Zappa-is clearly passionate about his premise. Aimed primarily at policy makers and legislators, his three-pronged agenda is designed to help the government create a culture committed to constantly reinventing the nature of its innovation capabilities. However, his authoritative and history-rich book is not necessarily useful to the everyday reader, as Kao includes few small-scale strategies. His one effort to bring this down to the citizen's level-in fictional short stories about the future-is a little contrived, jamming in statistics and leaning on flashbacks. But overall, the book does its job. The question is, will lawmakers look at it and follow its lead? (Oct. 2)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Review
"Tom Friedman sounded the alarm and gave us the big picture about the flattening of the world, and the decline of education and innovation in the U.S.A. John Kao gives us the specifics on exactly why and how the U.S.A. is losing our most valuable asset -- the ability of Americans to come up with great ideas, from light bulbs to PCs. Most importantly, Kao points in the direction the U.S.A. ought to go if it is not to become a global also-ran."



-- Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution





"The arms race of the last century has been replaced by a new global brain race -- and the U.S. is in danger of unilaterally disarming. This inspiring book frames the challenge facing us and offers immensely practical advice on how to regain our place as innovation leaders."



-- Paul Saffo, Roy Amara Fellow at the Institute for the Future





"John Kao hits the nail squarely on the head. In an engaging and highly readable way he delivers a timely message with important implications for our future -- that the global race for innovation is on, the field is filled with highly focused competitors, and our biggest mistake would be complacency."



-- Sean Randolph, President & CEO, Bay Area Economic Forum





"A nation's capacity for innovation will determine whether it will be rich and powerful or poor and weak. In his insightful exploration of the world of innovation, John Kao makes clear the challenge that America faces as its own capacity for innovation erodes even as the rest of the world's abilities are growing. America's postition of power and wealth will be determined by whether it can rise to meet the challenge of the innovation agenda that Kao lucidly sets out."



-- Peter Schwartz, Chairman, Global Business Network





"It should be a surprise to no one that John Kao's new book is a highly innovative approach to innovation. He analyzes with crystalline clarity the challenges to U.S. innovation hegemony from ambitious and hungry competitors, China, India, Finland, and even Estonia. He does not shrink from advocating specific solutions, including the creation in the United States of twenty $1B Innovation Hubs and a National Innovation Advisor. His vision is not, however, American. He shows us how the whole planet requirements to accelerate its capacity for innovation. For those of us who lead institutes dedicated to innovation this is a Bible and a Koran."



-- Reg Kelly, Chairman, Bay Area Science and Innovation Consortium, and Director, Institute of Quantitative Biomedical Research





"An insightful, and scary, account of the innovation challenges faced by the U.S A very useful book that punctures America's complacency about innovation."



--Business Week





Reader Reviews
The title of Thomas Friedman's most recently published book, The World Is Flat, is explained by the author in the Introduction: his use of the word "flat" refers to "the flattening forces [that] are empowering more and more individuals today to reach further, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever before...to connect, compete, and collaborate" innovatively. John Kao has these same forces in mind when suggesting that America is losing its innovative edge in the global marketplace. "Innovation has become the new currency of global competition as one country after another races toward a new high ground where the capacity for innovation is viewed as a hallmark of national success." Meanwhile, John Kao asserts that in the United States, "our national capacity for innovation is eroding, with deeply troubling implications for our future...In tomorrow's world, even more than today's, innovation will be the engine of progress. So unless we move to rectify this dismal situation, the United States cannot hope to remain a leader. What's at stake is nothing less than the future prosperity and security of our nation...While our competitor nations focus on educating and training engineers and inventors, our schools are turning out youngsters who are better consumers than they are creators." What to do? Kao proposes that the United States become an "innovation nation" by making a major commitment of resources, both human and financial, to rejuvenate our innovation age. "And the obvious first step is simply to acknowledge the challenges we face at a national level. After which we must develop a compelling vision and a blueprint for action that will reinvent the way we educate our children, marshal our resources, pursue our research projects, communicate and share our discoveries, and conduct ourselves in the world community." After first identifying the "what," Kao devotes the bulk of his attention to the "how" of achieving these and other objectives. He cites examples in the past when innovation in the U.S. unequalled (e.g. the Manhattan Project, Lockheed's "Skunk Works," and the U.S. space program's "Project Apollo") as well as examples of successful innovation initiatives in other countries, notably in China and India (of course) but also in Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, New Zealand, Singapore, and Taiwan. There is indeed what Kao characterizes as "the new geography of innovation" in a world that Friedman describes as "flat." Kao examines the four principal driving factors behind this "global evolution," noting that the globalization of innovation and of the capital to fund it "are, in my estimation, great positives overall for both the United States and the rest of the world. But the United States must begin ratcheting up its own innovation capacity to stay ahead of the curve." To me, one of Kao's most interesting ideas is what he calls an "Information Hub" such as the one in San Diego that demonstrates "how talent, investment, and creativity flow to places whose culture encourages the pioneer spirit, the search for open spaces, and the hunger to express itself as much by creating value in a place as through the ideas and ventures that are generated by it." Kao proposes a BHAG for the United States (Big Hairy Audacious Goal is a term introduced by Jim Collins): to establish twenty Innovation Hubs, each devoted to solving one "wicked" problem (e.g. climate change, environmental degradation, communicable diseases, energy sufficiency, water quality and sufficiency), with initial funding of at least $20 billion. One day, he hopes, "the catalytic nature of diversity and the power of innovation on a planetary basis will unleash the full potential of human beings to better themselves and to create a world well worth living in." Others may perhaps disagree with Kao's estimate of the nature and extent of the challenges that the United States currently faces. They may also disagree with the details of the response to those challenges that Kao recommends. However, there seems to be little doubt that innovation has not as yet become "the new currency" of U.S. participation in global competition nor is capacity for innovation as yet viewed as a "hallmark" of its national success. I agree with Kao that what's now at stake is "nothing less than the future prosperity and security of our nation." Those who share my regard for this book are urged to check out Friedman's aforementioned book as well as Competing in a Flat World co-authored by Victor Fung, William Fung, and Yoram (Jerry) Wind. Also, Richard Ogle's Smart World, Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect, Henry Chesbrough's Open Innovation and his more recent Open Business Models, and Seeing What's Next co-authored by Clayton Christensen, Scott Anthony, and Erik Roth. Comment | | (Report this)