PEG · Cisco

Another week and another collection of interesting ideas from around the internet.

As always, thoughts and/or comments are greatly appreciated.

Cisco’s Patent Strategy: It’s More Than Numbers [BusinessWeek: NEXT]
Innovation—at least as measured by patents—seems to fading in the U.S. For the first time, moreover, foreigners obtained more patents than U.S. residents.
Technology First, Needs Last [jnd]
Don Norman has come to an interesting conclusion: design research is great when it comes to improving existing product categories but essentially useless when it comes to new, innovative breakthroughs.
Boyer Lectures [Radio National]
General Peter Cosgrove, AC MC (ret’d) presented the Boyer Lectures, from 8 November 2009, with his 40 years of military experience and service to Australia placing him in a unique position to talk about the challenges and opportunities faced by society today and into the future.
Head to Head: Innovation in China and the US [Innovate on Purpose]
A survey comparing the attitudes and expectations about the US and China in regard to innovation finds some relatively unexpected differences, and some safe assumptions.

Another week and another collection of interesting ideas from around the Internet.

As always, thoughts and/or comments are greatly appreciated.

This issue:

Engineers rule [Forbes]
At American auto companies, finance guys and marketers rise to the top. Not at Honda.
China’s long road to innovation [strategy+business]
Beijing is mandating an increase in home-grown R&D, but Chinese companies face long odds in meeting international standards of innovation.
Cisco CEO John Chambers on speeding up innovation [BusinessWeek]
In Chambers’ view, business is on the verge—not in the midst—of a dramatic transformation, a huge leap forward in productivity built on collaboration made possible by Web 2.0-style tools similar to YouTube, FaceBook, and Wikipedia but adapted to the corporate environment. “Our children, with their social network[ing], have presented us with the future of productivity,” he emphatically told the crowd of about 4,500 executives.
The kids are alright [Economist]
Worries about the damage the internet may be doing to young people has produced a mountain of books—a suitably old technology in which to express concerns about the new. Robert Bly claims that, thanks to the internet, the “neo-cortex is finally eating itself”. Today’s youth may be web-savvy, but they also stand accused of being unread, bad at communicating, socially inept, shameless, dishonest, work-shy, narcissistic and
indifferent to the needs of others.

Cisco