One more insightful and witty article from NYTimes columnist and one of leading thinkers on globalization and environmental issues Thomas Friedman. Although it is about General Motors (and all US auto industry in US) being in crisis and asking for $25bn government intervention to ... "to enable the car companies to retool for innovation" (WOW!), in fact it also stresses few really important aspects of why the economy in general and many companies in particular are in the crisis now. The article "How To Fix the Flat World" is long ad must read, there are just two quotes:
"Lastly, somebody ought to call Steve Jobs, who doesn’t need to be bribed to do innovation, and ask him if he’d like to do national service and run a car company for a year. I’d bet it wouldn’t take him much longer than that to come up with the G.M. iCar."
"How could these companies be so bad for so long? Clearly the combination of a very un-innovative business culture, visionless management and overly generous labor contracts explains a lot of it. .... Therefore, instead of focusing on making money by innovating around fuel efficiency, productivity and design, G.M. threw way too much energy into lobbying and maneuvering to protect its gas guzzlers."
Reading the last quote I had dejaVu feeling for over 60 seconds - this is not the first time somebody calls Steve Jobs to fix the US economy. My RSS feeds helped to figure out in next 60 seconds and there it is.
" .... Second, create a Cabinet seat for Innovation to push an innovation agenda for the economy. We need a powerful figure to align government policy on innovation. My two choices here are David Kelley, founder of IDEO and the D-School at Stanford and, of course, Steve Jobs. Since they are close friends, choosing one gets the nation two brilliant minds who know how innovation works—and how to get it done to maximize growth.
Innovation is about more than technology and science (Apple’s R&D budget is among the lowest of the top “tech” companies). It’s a methodology that increasingly is based on collaborative networks and ecosystems that are global. Innovation is as much about sociology and anthropology as it is about technology. Kelley and Jobs understand that."
Can you imagine the world where the most influential country in the world would be run also either by Steve Jobs or IDEOs David Kelley? I would love to see this happening. But lets hope that at least one of these two sources are on Obamas transition team reading list because bringing innovation and designing skills (skills, that starts with understanding people and what they need or aim for) is are skills so much lacking in governments and many big organizations.
