In the United States and many other nations, a question is being asked by many who struggle with the brutal reality of innovation fatigue. In many sectors, it is taking bigger investments, longer times, and much more pain to deliver innovation, and much of what passes for innovation in some sectors ends up being incremental fluff or mere cost-cutting. Some blame it on employee productivity, 
some blame it on short-term thinking in pubic companies driven by the unnecessary compulsion to please stockholders above all others, some blame it on the MBA culture instilled by leading business schools, and others blame it on governments that make every entrepreneurial move a slow trudge across the regulatory mire and a possibly fatal descent into quicksand. Some point to numerous factors including the capital crunch, creating a perfect storm in which even cash-rich companies are afraid to invest in real innovation because of uncertainty and fear.
Innovation fatigue, of course, is not uniform. Individuals and individual companies often buck trends and rise above currents of fatigue, and sometimes entire sectors seem energized and vibrant with innovation. For example, innovation in mobile applications and devices seems vigorous, but even then we have former innovation leaders like Nokia and Motorola feeling the burn of fatigue across many parts of their business.
Where are the real pressure points? What are the next steps that America or other nations need to take to restore a vigorous innovation culture across many sectors and help their nations overcome innovation fatigue? What do corporate leaders need to be doing differently to turn their companies in havens of innovation that can deliver growth and success for the long term? What do our political leaders need to do and understand to let the fire of innovation burn more brightly?
Let me know your thoughts. The five answers I like best will be rewarded with a free copy of Conquering Innovation Fatigue mailed to wherever you are. All submissions will implicitly have your permission to share them, though I will withhold your name if you ask me to. Send your comments to jeff at magicinnovation d0t com.
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Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey: “So the fact of the matter is that the single biggest problem that beleaguers this country is the size of the federal debt — and for that matter the size of the state governments as well.†Government debt and the impact of government excess on the credit industry have made it much more difficult for business to have the confidence to invest in innovation or anything except immediate survival. Related to maintaining the debt, the Fed to keep interest rates artificially low which means big banks can borrow money at low rates and buy bonds on margin to give safe returns – it removes the incentive to take on the risks of financing the private sector. Debt is the cancer behind it all.