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The Forum > Article Comments > Innovating out of a recession > Comments

Innovating out of a recession : Comments

By Leon Gettler, published 14/7/2009

For any manufacturer, innovation is the mantra. Why then are so few doing it?

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Hi Leon.......social design in Australia inhibits capital investment in innovation. Also government must have a fund to help innovators to protect their designs and sue for patent protection...for a percentage of the returns. How many great ideas ( and income streams to the Nation), have been lost due to the lack of design protection/enforcement?

The social design issue is also fundamental.

What happens when you base your domestic economy on housing......those billions being spent on pollution ie. real estate infrastructure.....could have been spent on innovations in education, health and emerging technologies for export ?

What happens when you build an export economy based on digging things up and you run out of things to dig-up ? What happens when our combined public debt ( est. to rise to 300 billion) and private debt now at 640 billion = 1 trillion dollars ? What happens when you increase your population by 1 million every three years and each one of those by birth and immigration, consume more than they produce ?

It is all unravelling before our eyes. A trashed economy and a trashed ecosystem. Take our collective heads out of the sand. Stabilise Australia’s population growth. As Max Walsh ( ex Economics Editor for the SMH ) wrote in the 1980’s, “..the last thing Australia needs is a housing lead recovery.”

Sick of national debt, traffic jams, disappearing ancient bushland, apathy to the plight of other species, best agricultural land covered by houses..above gives an outline of how to get out of the mess.....time to stop “kicking the golden goose to death”.Invest in innovation...not more people (pollution plus more debt). Cheers, Ralph
Posted by Ralph Bennett, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 9:32:14 AM
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Leon - its all true to a certain extent but all pointless. the problem is that Australia's economy is geared to exporting minerals and agricultural produce. The rest of what it does produce is an outputs of other country's multinationals. Our rate of innovation reflects this. Successivle australian governments have tried to push industry into innovating, in the hope that advanced industries might result, with comparaitvely little success. If you have some better policy prescription then lets hear it..
Posted by Curmudgeon, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 1:29:18 PM
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Ausinnovatio is an organization that regularly surveys Australian companies for innovation.

http://www.ausinnovation.org/Pages/Home.aspx

It repeatedly finds that the main factor driving innovation in a company is feedback from the user or purchaser.

If the user wants an item to be lighter, stronger, cheaper or in the colour blue, then innovative companies will try to meet that demand.

However I believe the ethos of innovation does not start in industry, but starts in the education system and perhaps in the home. If the education system does not innovate, then students do not innovate, and when these students go into industry they do not innovate in industry.

The education system in this country is totally non-innovative. It has grown fat and lazy feeding off the public purse with no requirements for innovation or continuous improvement. It imports almost everything, produces very little, and encourages the students to only use what has been produced elsewhere.

An example is this website for teachers: -

http://www.aussieeducator.org.au/education_software.html

Described as a “total education web page for Australia”, the site is set up for teachers and lists dozens of pieces of software that can be downloaded by a teacher.

Only one piece of software on the site is from Australia, with all other software listed on the site coming from outside Australia, yet the site calls itself "Australian".

That is now the mentality of the education system. It is a mentality of use something that has been produced elsewhere, and that mentality rubs off on the students who eventually go into industry.
Posted by vanna, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 1:58:06 PM
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Why are Australian companies less innovative then companies
in other parts of the world? I guess because they can get away
with it.

Australia, with only 20 million people and relatively isolated
by distance, still has many more so called captive markets, then
say Europe or the US. That is particularly the case where I live,
in Western Australia. Without the heat of intense competition,
people seem to become complacent.

I spent quite some time trying to persuade the WA meat processing
industry to start thinking outside the square, to focus on consumers
and to adapt to a changing world. In the end I failed, for it seems
it was easier for companies to think of ways of paying farmers less
for livestock, rather then improving and adapting their products.
WA is a bit of a captive market for meat processors, due to a lack
of numbers of them competing.

Finally however, it might have bitten them in the arse. Farmers are
patient people, but if they are ripped off for too long, they will
find a solution. With an increased demand for grain and novel
and improved grain production systems invented by farmers, they
have jumped ship and sold off their livestock. So the meat processing
industry would be doing alot of navel gazing, hopefully finally
realising that if they don't innovate and change, there won't be
much left of their industry in a few years.

The most certain thing in life is change and we ignore it at our
peril.
Posted by Yabby, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 9:18:13 PM
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Necessity is still the mother of invention.

Israel is a third our size, but has been stupendously innovative in areas that are important to them. Electronic security being just one example, which has spawned a whole heap of innovations in related computer technologies.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2465676412

We're basically too complacent and leisure-oriented to bother too much. And to underline its invisibility in the grand scheme of things, Government recognition and support of R&D reflects this "can't be arsed" attitude.

Big time.
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 15 July 2009 1:28:23 AM
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The author and responses (so far) have made the mistake of conflating the Innovator or Inventor role with that of the Entrepreneur. The article is correct that the managerial role is generally incompatible with that of the innovator, the mindsets are very different. Innovation requires an ability to look beyond established solutions to problems, not an easy task for the stability / maintenance role of the manager. Unfortunately though, merely encouraging an increase in innovation will not solve any the problems suggested by Leon or Ralph.

The most important component of advancement in the market is the entrepreneur, an individual or group of individuals who risk their own money on predicting a future market desire or implementing an improvement in efficiency or diversity in the market. The innovator and entrepreneurial roles can be performed by a single individual or the entrepreneur may implement the innovations of a third party but the market activity of the entrepreneur separates the two roles.

Brilliant men and women can innovate as much as they like but without the risk taking action (all changes to established practices are risks) of the entrepreneur nothing happens.

As such, innovation does not need to occur in Australia for us to benefit from it, but the entrepreneurial function must occur in Australian businesses for the recovery to be as swift as possible.
Posted by oBsiDiaN, Wednesday, 15 July 2009 3:04:57 AM
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