Innovation [2008-12-01]

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.