TechMeme and see new ideas being discussed, with bloggers weighing pros and cons and contemplating the future.
For whatever reason, I don't see that happening any more–especially in the last year. Instead of innovation, all we're getting is the same old set of ideas, recycled and spiffed up for another run thru the limelight. Another day, another social network. Or another mashup. Yawn. TechMeme is dominated by press releases and product announcements. Yawn.
I suppose the definition of innovation is subjective and fuzzy, but I think it's easy enough to see (feel?) whether we're all going to feel the reverberations of an idea for years to come. That's my litmus test. Will FaceBook and Digg still be hot two years from now? I doubt it. They're improved implementations of the concept of letting people set up a home on the Web, something Geocities did a decade ago. They will be usurped by the next incremental improvement.
My definition of innovation is something which disrupts the current paradigm and enables more value creation. And by value creation I mean MONEY creation. Something that increases productivity or opens completely new markets.
Our country is in bad shape right now. The clowns in control of our fiscal policy (I'm looking at you, Greenspan) have expanded the money supply far faster than our real innovation has been moving, creating a bubble which is now popping. It will only stop when the money supply balances with the true level of value produced by our society. I'm glad to see others in the tech industry slowly coming out of their drunken haze and waking up to this fact, they are in store for quite a hangover. The faster people face up to reality the faster we can move on and repair the situation.
I feel that the onus is on us as technical leaders to innovate our way out of the coming Depression. It is, quite literally, the only thing that will stop this country from plunging into a long and deep Depression. That's not to say we shouldn't fix the system, lock up the children and put some adults in charge–we most certainly should–but the damage is already done and we must do what we can to stop the hemorrhaging.
The next few years will be difficult ones. My hope is that as people get hungrier (literally, unfortunately) they will start to innovate again. Throw away this garbage that has passed for innovation for the past several years and get back to brass tacks–creating new things which add value to peoples' lives. When we get back to that point and start making some progress we will have taken the first important steps to restoring our quality of life.
As a final note, this applies to me as well. I am going to take it on myself to do whatever I can to help in this area. I can at the very least put new ideas out there for others to pick up and run with, and I intend to do so to the best of my ability.
