Innovation [2010-05-25]

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

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

  • Innovation and R&D [The Economist]
    The Economist provides two interactive visualisations that show the future of innovation taking shape. We can see a strong link between the number of international patents that a country is granted and the amount that it spends on research and development. A 2007 snapshot shows this clearly, and also that America and Japan led the pack.
  • McLaren wins the innovation race [timkastelle.org]
    McLaren shows us how to leverage lessons learnt in Formula 1 in other domains, such as air traffic control and health care, making them the masters of extending current competencies into new fields.
  • The creative process gone wrong [Bob Sutton]
    It seems that the very tools we often use to manage the creative, innovation process can be the source of the process’s biggest problems.
  • What if the very theory that underlies why we need patents is wrong? [techdirt]
    Our current patent system was designed for an earlier, gentler age. A number of pundits are – quite rightly – pointing out that the system is tremendously obsolete in terms of actually promoting the progress, and is set up in a way that favors a concept of innovation and invention that may not be how the world actually works today.