The state of innovation wasn't great, even before you threw a pandemic or recession into the mix. And while it's too early to tell the long-term implications that team isolation and rising interests rate might have on the research and development process, associate professor Kevin Bryan explores why our process of innovation might be in crisis, and what might be done to solve the problem.
Show notes:
[0:00] "There's this worry that growth is slowing down. you might think, how could that be an era of like artificial intelligence and robots and like how growth is slowing down. But if you think back toward, the early 20th century, with airplanes, and electricity, and modern research labs, and automobiles, and home appliances, it seemed like the world was changing very quickly."
[0:45] Meet Kevin Bryan, an associate professor at the Rotman School of Management, and expert in innovation. He has concerns. Growth in innovation seems to have stalled. Add a pandemic into the mix, and you have to wonder if innovation is in crisis?
[2:12] How do you define innovation?
[2:22] There was lots of diffusion and transformation early in the pandemic, but it wasn't true innovation.
[2:55] The root cause: a breakdown of teamwork caused by everyone working from home.
[3:30] There are two ways of transferring knowledge between colleagues and co-workers: direct and indirect. Both are equally important, and both suffered during the pandemic.
[4:51] Our introduction to new people and ideas likely fell during the pandemic, which can have a further impact on the process of knowledge transfer.
[6:12] It's too early to say what the long-term impact will be, but Kevin doesn't think it'll be positive.
[6:50] Money - or lack-thereof - also plays a roll in our lack of innovation.
[7:17] Canada just doesn't spend as much on R&D as other countries.
[7:50] Canada's high tax rates and lower income inequality also makes us less appealing for inventors and innovators.
[8:39] Rising interest rates does not bode well for research and development.
[9:15] Companies need to be judicious with long-run, uncertain projects, which means less investment in unproven ideas.
[10:04] COVID-19 vaccines is a good case study for innovating in a crisis, and speaks to what needs to change more broadly if we want to solve the problems surrounding innovation pipelines.
[10:50] The first idea isn't always the best idea - just look at the Wright Brothers. And in a crisis, coming in second might be a losing proposition, even if your idea is better.
[11:38] So how do you incentivize innovation in a socially useful way?
[11:55] Governments and public institutions need to step up and support and incentivize basic innovation.
[13:30] Companies probably need to stop being so precious with their trade secrets. Good ideas are more likely to come from outside your organization than within.
[14:31] "You know, Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson says ideas are in the air, and they literally are in the air, like they're not all written down on a piece of paper. I guess all we can say is that we know it's important and things that would block that informal transfer of knowledge can be really damaging for your organization's ability to take advantage of new ideas in the world."
