Evidence, Chris Lewis?

>>While I am keen on the importance of innovation, I would like to see some evidence of how it can work.<<

The evidence is all around you.

Apple has been innovating like crazy over the past few years, and has managed to both create, and supply to, a market that no-one actually knew existed before. Or, at the very least, couldn't accurately quantify.

Google, similarly, has grown from being a search engine (a what?) into an information resource the like of which the planet hasn't seen. Did we have the slightest notion, ten years ago, that we would be able to use a search engine to look at a streetscape 10,000km away, simply by entering its address into a browser? For free?

But your question is not about that, I suspect.

You are looking for the signposts that say "this way to successful innovation".

They simply do not exist. You can only create a fertile environment in which ideas can grow to maturity, if they are useful, and die quietly without too much collateral damage, if they are not.

>>After all, the US is much more innovative than Australia yet it is struggling<<

Although I don't believe that the US is struggling *because* it is more innovative. Do you?

Once again, it is important to stress that production (let's call it that instead of manufacturing) is the process that turns the ideas - the innovations - into economic success or failure. After all, lending people money to buy houses was once an innovation. It was successful for many years, due to its production process. And later became toxic, due to a change in its production process.

The idea/concept/innovation itself was never an issue.

The production process is entirely separate from the ideas themselves. You appear to be attempting a linkage which simply isn't there.

>>I also need concrete examples of nations that succeeds on innovation alone.<<

I doubt you will find any. As I suggested, the effective translation of an idea into a product or service is also key.

We are, unfortunately, not that good at either.

yabby and pericles,

Yes, I do agree that innovation is very important; I probably should have made that clearer. And yes the US would be a lot worse off without innovation.

I have plenty to think about, so i thank you for that.

Just want to address one of my previous points. I meant manufacturing was key component of global exports. Obviously services are the largest component of many domestic economies.

Back to the debate, my article does not wish to just focus on industry job creation. It is also concerned about the need for welfare assistance to be streamlined in the case that the world economy does not go gang busters forever through a reliance on Asia.

Welfare reform, along with other issues, should also be planned for. Such issues would have to be linked to others, such as immigration and housing.

Chris Lewis,

In reference to Percilies comment "an idea into a product or service is also key"

I remember reading through an article some years ago where a researcher found a very good correlation between transfer of knowledge and an increase in the wealth of a country.

If a discovery had been made, then how quickly information about the discovery transferred through society was key, because that discovery could be capatilised.

If there is rapid transfer of knowledge through a society, the greater the chances that the society becomes wealthier.

Unfortunately this is not our society. Our education systems are stuffed, and someone now has to pay a lot of money to receive a very average or even poor quality education.

There is very little research and development occurring that ever reaches the market. If a company wants some information from a university or research center, they have to pay money for it, and the information they receive is often not reliable or not useful.

Feedback information from the public is hard to get, and almost impossible from members of government departments and members of the education system.

The list goes on, but eventually almost all technology in this country now has to be imported.

Vanna, yes i agree.

i remember the chinese academic and UNSW developing solar panel technology, only for him having to leave Australia for china where now his products have made extremely rich.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/2010/08/03/aussie-solar-research-slashed

Chris Lewis
There is a book on knowledge and wealth creation that has a chapter on Australia.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=jscSH1-E3pYC&pg=PA298&lpg=PA298&dq=increase+in+wealth+%2B+knowledge+transfer&source=bl&ots=F_FOQ9coIr&sig=__g1ncPx6XxHMj2sL9fFciSwzuY&hl=en&ei=TAPKTMmaO4vmvQOc0bHfDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

The solar power case also goes the other way around. Recently the NSW education department spent over $500 million of taxpayer funding on importing software from a German company to run the administration systems of NSW schools.

With some effort, the education department could have formed teams of Australian companies to develope that software and kept the $500 million in the country. The $500 million would have been a massive boost for the IT industry in Australia, but instead it now is a boost to a multinational company operating from Germany.

This type of spending by government departments and education systems has been occuring for many years, and now there is very little connection between government department and education systems and the rest of the country.