In 2017, being a lone genius will fail
- Transfer
Every innovator imagines himself to be Steve Jobs. He was impudent, stubborn, firmly believed in his vision and rolled into a pancake all who came across him in his way. He knew the ups and downs, but no one denies that he has greatly influenced the world.
While researching for my next book, “ Mapping Innovation, ” I was surprised to find that most of the great innovators I talked to didn't look like Steve Jobs at all. These are not selfish people suffering from megalomania, but some of the most humble and helpful people you can imagine.
The idea of a lonely genius has always been just a myth. According to Brian Arthur [the W . Brian Arthur ] in The Nature of Technology], innovation is a combination, so it is unlikely that anyone alone had all the puzzle pieces in their hands. Even Steve Jobs depended on a small group of loyal people. And thanks to digital technology, the ability to work together is becoming a key competitive advantage .
In the 20th century, a key business strategy was a linear value chain . The goal was to maximize contractual opportunities with buyers and suppliers, and minimize threats from firms entering the market and substitute products. Therefore, the strategy was similar to a game of chess , and you had to arrange the necessary pieces in the right places.
Today, this linear world has collapsed, and we live and work in a semantic economy in which everything is connected to each other and openness wins closed . It doesn’t matter what resources you control, it’s important what you have access to, and many resources are outside your organization. When everything is interconnected, closing itself off from everyone, you will most likely lose access to valuable resources, and not protect anything patented that cannot be reproduced elsewhere.
Therefore, access to ecosystems containing talent, technology, and information requires the use of platforms. No, even the most powerful organizations and governments, can no longer do this on their own. In a networked world, strategy cannot only focus on efficiency, which is increasingly based on automation, but should work with expanding and deepening ties.
Do not hesitate, today every business should become a platform. Try to manage the organization using the old linear method, and the resources needed to compete with others will not be available to you.
On September 17, 1991, Linus Torvalds released the first version of Linux . Unlike commercial options developed by companies such as Microsoft, Linux was free to use and modify. Moreover, users were encouraged to make improvements and contribute code.
Business did not like it. Microsoft director Steve Ballmer called Linux a cancerous tumor , and stated that anyone using open source software puts their business at risk. He called on the government to abandon support for open source projects. For companies like Microsoft, the advent of Linux has become a deadly threat.
But times have changed, and the industry has adopted open source. IBM made this one of the first. She began shipping hardware with pre-installed Linux in the mid-90s, and periodically filed patents to protect the open source community. Tesla recently made its patents publicly available. Today, even Microsoft admits its love of Linux .
To understand why open communities have become so important, take a look at Google’s reasons for TensorFlow’s launch., its library of tools for machine learning. Google does not take up opportunities or experience, but the discovery of the code allows it to access the talents of tens of thousands of programmers from around the world. “Since we decided to open the project, the code has been working faster, it has gained more features and has become more flexible and convenient,” one of the directors told me.
So if Google, one of the largest and most complex companies in the world, can’t do it alone, who can do it?
In the mid-1980s, it seemed that the US semiconductor industry was doomed. Although US companies have been innovating and dominating technology for decades, they were overwhelmed by cheaper Japanese imports. Like machines and electronics, microchips seemed to be another symbol of the decline of the United States.
Such a prospect had serious consequences for the country's competitiveness and security. In 1986, the government created the SEMATECH consortium , consisting of government services, research institutes, and private companies. By the mid-90s, US companies again became industry leaders and continue to be.
In recent years, the SEMATECH model has been expanded to programs creating a new generation of innovators , such as JCESRin the Argonne National Laboratory, which creates new generation batteries, and the National Network of Industrial Innovations , which creates advanced production nodes throughout the country.
And without government intervention, private companies create consortia to solve big problems. For example, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook have created a partnership to deeply explore and disseminate the best approaches to the use of artificial intelligence. Others created working groups to solve the problems of quantum encryption.
While the challenges facing us are increasing in size and complexity, we can expect that consortia that integrate the capabilities of government, industry, and scientific organizations will take on ever greater roles.
The years following the Second World War were marked by great technological transformations. We tamed the energy of the atom, built jet engines and overcame the speed of sound, revealed the principles of genetics, created transistors and microchips. Such fundamentally new paradigms have led to unprecedented prosperity.
Since the 1970s, we have largely expanded on previous achievements. Air travel has become cheaper and more efficient. Computers have shrunk, accelerated and integrated into the economy, but in essence the technologies have remained the same that were used at the end of the 20th century, and they are already approaching their limitations.
In the next decade , Moore’s law will cease to be fulfilled , and the development of lithium-ion batteries, on which the power of our devices and electric vehicles dependwill slow down and then stop completely . The risks of the effects of climate change will increase, and chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes and Parkinson's disease will threaten the bankruptcy of the economy.
But with all the increased requests, our capabilities may be even higher. New architectures like quantum computers and neuromorphic chips can lead to the creation of machines that outperform everything we saw before. They will serve as the basis for new technological paradigms, such as genomics, nanotechnology and robotics .
As Dr. Angel Diaz, IBM's vice president of cloud technology and architecture, said, “To really change the world today, we need more than just tricky code. “We need programmers to work with cancer researchers, climatologists, and experts in many other areas, and solve big problems , having a significant impact on the world.”
In the emerging new business environment, the best way to become a dominant player is to become an indispensable partner. Collaboration is becoming a competitive advantage.
While researching for my next book, “ Mapping Innovation, ” I was surprised to find that most of the great innovators I talked to didn't look like Steve Jobs at all. These are not selfish people suffering from megalomania, but some of the most humble and helpful people you can imagine.
The idea of a lonely genius has always been just a myth. According to Brian Arthur [the W . Brian Arthur ] in The Nature of Technology], innovation is a combination, so it is unlikely that anyone alone had all the puzzle pieces in their hands. Even Steve Jobs depended on a small group of loyal people. And thanks to digital technology, the ability to work together is becoming a key competitive advantage .
Platform features
In the 20th century, a key business strategy was a linear value chain . The goal was to maximize contractual opportunities with buyers and suppliers, and minimize threats from firms entering the market and substitute products. Therefore, the strategy was similar to a game of chess , and you had to arrange the necessary pieces in the right places.
Today, this linear world has collapsed, and we live and work in a semantic economy in which everything is connected to each other and openness wins closed . It doesn’t matter what resources you control, it’s important what you have access to, and many resources are outside your organization. When everything is interconnected, closing itself off from everyone, you will most likely lose access to valuable resources, and not protect anything patented that cannot be reproduced elsewhere.
Therefore, access to ecosystems containing talent, technology, and information requires the use of platforms. No, even the most powerful organizations and governments, can no longer do this on their own. In a networked world, strategy cannot only focus on efficiency, which is increasingly based on automation, but should work with expanding and deepening ties.
Do not hesitate, today every business should become a platform. Try to manage the organization using the old linear method, and the resources needed to compete with others will not be available to you.
Open source as a strategic imperative
On September 17, 1991, Linus Torvalds released the first version of Linux . Unlike commercial options developed by companies such as Microsoft, Linux was free to use and modify. Moreover, users were encouraged to make improvements and contribute code.
Business did not like it. Microsoft director Steve Ballmer called Linux a cancerous tumor , and stated that anyone using open source software puts their business at risk. He called on the government to abandon support for open source projects. For companies like Microsoft, the advent of Linux has become a deadly threat.
But times have changed, and the industry has adopted open source. IBM made this one of the first. She began shipping hardware with pre-installed Linux in the mid-90s, and periodically filed patents to protect the open source community. Tesla recently made its patents publicly available. Today, even Microsoft admits its love of Linux .
To understand why open communities have become so important, take a look at Google’s reasons for TensorFlow’s launch., its library of tools for machine learning. Google does not take up opportunities or experience, but the discovery of the code allows it to access the talents of tens of thousands of programmers from around the world. “Since we decided to open the project, the code has been working faster, it has gained more features and has become more flexible and convenient,” one of the directors told me.
So if Google, one of the largest and most complex companies in the world, can’t do it alone, who can do it?
Creating consortia to solve complex problems
In the mid-1980s, it seemed that the US semiconductor industry was doomed. Although US companies have been innovating and dominating technology for decades, they were overwhelmed by cheaper Japanese imports. Like machines and electronics, microchips seemed to be another symbol of the decline of the United States.
Such a prospect had serious consequences for the country's competitiveness and security. In 1986, the government created the SEMATECH consortium , consisting of government services, research institutes, and private companies. By the mid-90s, US companies again became industry leaders and continue to be.
In recent years, the SEMATECH model has been expanded to programs creating a new generation of innovators , such as JCESRin the Argonne National Laboratory, which creates new generation batteries, and the National Network of Industrial Innovations , which creates advanced production nodes throughout the country.
And without government intervention, private companies create consortia to solve big problems. For example, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook have created a partnership to deeply explore and disseminate the best approaches to the use of artificial intelligence. Others created working groups to solve the problems of quantum encryption.
While the challenges facing us are increasing in size and complexity, we can expect that consortia that integrate the capabilities of government, industry, and scientific organizations will take on ever greater roles.
A new era of innovation
The years following the Second World War were marked by great technological transformations. We tamed the energy of the atom, built jet engines and overcame the speed of sound, revealed the principles of genetics, created transistors and microchips. Such fundamentally new paradigms have led to unprecedented prosperity.
Since the 1970s, we have largely expanded on previous achievements. Air travel has become cheaper and more efficient. Computers have shrunk, accelerated and integrated into the economy, but in essence the technologies have remained the same that were used at the end of the 20th century, and they are already approaching their limitations.
In the next decade , Moore’s law will cease to be fulfilled , and the development of lithium-ion batteries, on which the power of our devices and electric vehicles dependwill slow down and then stop completely . The risks of the effects of climate change will increase, and chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes and Parkinson's disease will threaten the bankruptcy of the economy.
But with all the increased requests, our capabilities may be even higher. New architectures like quantum computers and neuromorphic chips can lead to the creation of machines that outperform everything we saw before. They will serve as the basis for new technological paradigms, such as genomics, nanotechnology and robotics .
As Dr. Angel Diaz, IBM's vice president of cloud technology and architecture, said, “To really change the world today, we need more than just tricky code. “We need programmers to work with cancer researchers, climatologists, and experts in many other areas, and solve big problems , having a significant impact on the world.”
In the emerging new business environment, the best way to become a dominant player is to become an indispensable partner. Collaboration is becoming a competitive advantage.