Innovation is Not Enough

The idea that successive waves of innovation are the main driver of long-term performance in a new or emerging business—or an existing one, of course—appears to be sound when viewed in the abstract. Clearly, innovations in technology, processes, and methodology have occurred, sometimes dramatically, in the U.S. and world economies. Whole new businesses emerged over the past two centuries as advances in manufacturing, transportation, services and communication came in sometimes rapid, succ...

 Computers and Creative Writing

And for all their power and speed, today’s digital machines have shown little creative ability. They can’t compose very good songs, write great novels, or generate good ideas for new businesses. Apparent exceptions here only prove the rule. A prankster used an online generator of abstracts for computer science papers to create a submission that was accepted for a technical conference (in fact, the organizers invited the “author” to chair a panel), but the abstract was simply a series ...