The recently launched New Age of Innovation blog is obviously a marketing vehicle for the new book by C. K. Prahalad and M. S. Krishnan, but that doesn't mean that the blog or the book aren't worth reading. I first heard of Prahalad when he spoke at an IT industry event about a year ago, and his ideas on the changing nature of competition and on innovation as business survival skill are as fascinating as they are important. I can't wait to read this new book.
A recent post on the blog, by guest blogger and venture capitalist William Glynn, mixes a bit of flag-waving encouragement with some harsh but not-undeserved criticism of those who cling to dead and dying business and economic models:
If the U.S. and its people would only wake up to the fact that we are the world's largest, most sophisticated fuel supply for innovation … and it isn't stopping or running dry. It's this identity crisis that holds us back, bound to rotting unions and auto plants, the working man, farmer, steel worker, plant worker, etc. We need an FDR-level plan to get people out of the industrial-age ghettos and into the light. We have to. I think we can all agree, we don't have a choice
(Read Glynn's entire post: New Age Of Innovation | Innovate in Real Time with Me -- Billy G | C.K. Prahalad)
Remarks like that will be a bitter pill for many in Cleveland and other Rust Belt cities. But there's no denying that times have changed, the world has changed, and that change will continue at a dizzying and ever-accelerating pace. It is important to recognize that change as an opportunity, rather than as a threat.
As I write this, NPR is running a John McCain soundbyte in which the candidate warns that he can't promise that manufacturing jobs will ever return, but promises that he will focus efforts on providing people with the education necessary to move into the new economy. As campaign promises go, that one's not bad -- at least his assessment of the situation is realistic. (That's not an endorsement.) So while I agree with Glynn in principle, and I firmly believe that we need the kind of "FDR-level plan" he suggests, doesn't the ultimate responsibility for adapting to changing times rest with the individual?
Each of us is an individual participant in the global economy, in a very real sense a one-person company, regardless of who we work for, where we work, or what we do. That carries the awesome but unavoidable responsibility of remaining individually competitive and marketable. If the market for your particular skill set evaporates, it's time to acquire new skills.
One very important aspect of this, particularly for those of us with Rust Belt roots, is to accept that the notion of secure, life-long (or even long-term) employment is as dead as 35-cent a gallon gasoline, 8-track players, and smoking in bars. Real, long-term financial security isn't going to be handed down from any company or any government. If you want that security, you're going to have to figure out how to remain viable and marketable participant in an ever-changing economy.
And that comes down to personal innovation. As individual participants in a changing global economy, innovation must become a personal survival skill. It won't be enough to simply accept change. We must manufacture our own individual security by embracing change, by leveraging change, and by driving change. Each of us must become an instrument of innovation.
