Greatest invention in the next 10 years

Over at the highly addictive Quora, the question was asked "What will be the greatest invention of the next 10 years?"

Here is my answer from the site:

Personally, I think the greatest invention of the next 10 years will not be a technology at all. I think it will be the discovery and implementation of repeatable and predictable methods to do innovation as a business process.

Consider this. Microsoft has spent between 3 and 4 times as much as Apple on research and development (as a percentage of revenue) every year over the last decade. Much of that has been on core research, developing breakthroughs which have they have not successfully commercialised.

Apple, on the other hand, doesn't do breakthroughs, at least not the pure research ones that MS does. They are very good at commercialisation though.

It was impossible to miss the eventual effect of this when Apple passed MS in capitalisation this year.

What is it Apple does that Microsoft does not? 

Creating a business system that can do what Apple can do will let all companies create profitable inventions more reliability. Personally, I also think that when we finally work out how to do it predictably, we'll also see a catalytic change from an information economy to an innovation economy.

In an innovation economy, value is created by how good you are at turning knowledge into profitable stuff. On the other hand, where we are now - the information economy - is where value is created by how much knowledge you control.

Information economies reminds me of the industrial age economies of the past - where instead of knowledge, value was created in proportion to how much physical resource you put your arms around.

It will be an amazing and exciting change, I think.

Comments

[DaveP]

Apple are great at pulling together other peoples ideas and wrapping them up in an aspirational envelope.
Their OS is a variant of Unix, Sony Walkmans have been playing mobile music for decades and they pay licensing fees to HTC. Repackaging other peoples ideas and marketing them doesn't / shouldn't cost much, helping their bank balance. I do agree though that turning knowledge into £££'s is important - if shallow, but who values the initial knowledge?

[James Gardner]

"Who values initial knowledge?" I think that's the key point I was
trying to make. There is value in pure research, but more in
turning that research into something that people can actually use.
Key conclusion for innovators: if value maximisation is the name of
the game, you should take what has already been discovered and try
to convert it into stuff people can use.

[DaveP]

"...more in turning that research into something that people can actually use."

So... the greater value is in the take up of an idea? Thus I surmise that what you meant is: "something that people want to actually use".

But, isn't that MARKETING not Innovation. ;-)

[James Gardner]

Well it is probably new product development. But who said marketing
couldn't be innovative?