So Rule #3: as we grasp the innovation agenda, we must face the values issues it entails. They are not side-issues, “ethics” concerns, matters for “public engagement;” they will shape both policy and markets; and they lie at the heart of our nation’s choices as Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson meet Ray Kurzweil and Mark Zuckerberg.
Point is: the ostrich will always be out-smarted, and that is true both of the political classes and their associated values communities here in the United States – and of the United States in the global community. Which is not to say that I favor a U.S. “industrial policy” approach (though I hope we are tracking with care those competitors ”“ pretty much all of them – who are putting their money there; let’s track how that is working); or the idea that we should appoint an innovation czar to solve the problem (surely, in decade 2 of century 21, that is squarely the job of our chief executive? ”“ point to ponder as the jockeying for 2012 begins).
So what will 2011 bring? More of the same – being short-changed by our short-term thinking; America rests on wilting laurels as more energetic nations assert themselves?
We need to man up, and woman up, to refurbish our capacity as both chief global citizen, and chief global competitor….