Need a Focus on Things, Not Just Ideas
Americans
are known as being one of history’s leading modern inventors, building one of
best global economies in history. With this new entrepreneurship boom in the software
and technology industry the US economy is seeing many great new ideas,
resources and services. Just look at the billion dollar ideas that have come
from WhatsApp, Facebook, DropBox, and others. With all of that said, I believe
the US will not actually build and create sustainable jobs for the economy
without change.
The main reasons
that the US will not build its economy through these new advances are: a lack
of melding inventions and industries, a need for innovation to be integrated with
manufacturing, and a lack of training in the workforce.
Radical new
inventions are a staple of what the U.S. does well, but melding these new
inventions and ideas to existing industries is lacking. The idea for creating
technology which stimulates an economy or even entire business sectors lies in permeating
these ideas throughout existing products and processes. The U.S. tends to kill
or outsource ideas for labored jobs and replace them with knowledge and
services professions. Instead of recombining elements of old or flat-growth areas into new,
vibrant areas they remove the sector completely. Just look at LCD TVs, sustainable
energy systems, or computers, the main hotspots for the knowledge and research
of these technologies has left U.S. shores. Contrarily, when China started
growing into the manufacturing powerhouse that it is now, Germany didn’t off
shore their key knowledge and skills of its automated machinery industry. The Germans instead supplied, adapted and used new technologies to upgrade existing machine systems that could be used for the manufacturing of the variety of goods that were washing up on
China’s shores. The difference is seeing the opportunity of a new growth market versus seeing the opportunity for a cheap labor force.
In order to
sustain true economic growth there needs to be a link between innovation and
manufacturing. Innovation is not just the concentration of radical ideas as
seen in the high-tech arena, but the sustained, widespread productivity gains
which develops and grows technology. In the US, you don’t see Programming
PhD students running off to join big, existing companies – they join startups
trying to hit it big with the next big app. This concentration is creating
an edge for companies outside the U.S. The best Programming PhD students
outside the United States join Audi, Mitsubishi, Sony, Samsung, Sinopec Group
(China’s largest petroleum company), or Thyssen Krupp, each of which is a
global leader in its respective industry. Even though many of the base technologies for previously stated companies were invented in the United States, due to the continued Research and Development, or growth and concentration on incremental improvements, foreign countries are far surpassing the inventor's capabilities or expertise.
Continual training is
also a requirement to ensure a growing, enduring and innovative economy. To transform new
inventions into a market there needs to be a means for helping small or
growing companies compete. Previously the United States had places like Bell Laboratories as a place for research and development on a specific place, but the United States has privatized many of its research facilities. There needs to be a renewed concentration on general research. Foreign competitors have founded places like the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Institutes, Hirst Research Centre, KITCO
India, PaaSage or CERN, which help coordinate and drive efforts for businesses in order to innovate and develop in specific areas of need and concentration. Additionally, to help integrate new advances the workforce must be constantly trained in order to grow
and develop the products and processes improving engagement, productivity,
value of the workforce and the general knowledge of all workers. This includes both on the job training, formal continuing education and others. This enables
and grows the workforce, instead of searching for ways to reduce or eliminate
the personnel. Training not only makes an individual competitive in the job market, but improves the overall market with a diverse and engaged workforce.
It is time
for the United States to reign in the innovation it is creating and once again
use it toward its manufacturing output. Melding innovation and manufacturing
will create real economic growth, to empower employees with learning, build more powerful, growing companies and add sustainable
value to the global market. Internet services, applications, and services can
be copied and manipulated, but when you create a knowledge Mecca for production
and ideas, you have created far more. Similar to what San Francisco is to the technology
industry, create sustainable hot spots for manufacturing. Innovation
concentration breeds companies and products and with the amalgamation of new
inventions with manufacturing and the right training, you can create far more
wealth for a nation.
-thePonderingNick
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