Leadership & Business

Innovating American Inventor

Last night I caught Simon Cowell on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno discussing his new show American Inventor. Cowell told Leno that he created the show with the idea that he would be choosing from among hundreds of really innovative new inventions to find the most spectacular “next big thing.”   

Overall, Cowell said, the “eureka moments” of the contestants did not translate into true innovation.  Some inventors solved problems that didn’t need solving.   

As he sat there telling Jay how he had hoped to find the “next big thing” and be forced to choose between some remarkable inventions, I sat there thinking how they lost out on a fantastic opportunity. 

They didn’t have to scour the country for the rare person who can capitalize on a “eureka moment.” Imagine what would have happened if the producers had given a group full of new ideas a little training on the process of innovation to create a highly competitive show. 

I’m sure American Inventor will be as stupid, zany, scripted, ridiculous, hilarious and charming as American Idol, but it’s still a shame. Had they gathered some inventors and given them some training, the show could have produced some amazing inventions.

It’s just another example of how misunderstood the real process of innovation is – in corporate America and in the mainstream.

Ps. Check out all the cool Crib Sheet statistics on the American Inventor website.

Innovation Hoopla All Bark No Bite

Business observers are watching the imperative for Innovation unfold today much as they did in the 1980s, when the imperative for Quality pervaded the corporate agenda. Back then, we were getting our clocks cleaned by Asian competitors who figured out how to build reliable quality into their products while keeping costs down.  

In other words, fear was in the air. Legitimate fear, born of the reality that America was no longer the far-and-away leader in making high-quality cars, TVs and other stuff that consumers wanted to buy.

Today the permeating fear is grounded in the need to innovate or die. No one is questioning the need to become more innovative today, just as no one questioned the need to improve quality in the past. 

Healthcare Costs – The Real Story

Fact: During the period 2000-2003, the average annual increase in personal health care expenditures was 8.2 percent. This equates to $4,866 per capita in 2003 (compared to $2,398 in 1990). ⁴

Note that this statistic specifies “expenditures” – what we are spending on healthcare in this country. We tend to use the terms “spending” and “costs” interchangeably, but this only discourages the notion that disparate factors could be affecting costs versus spending.

Let’s compare healthcare to another booming industry – consumer electronics. In the 1970s, you could get a color television for around $250 and a transistor radio for $25 (adjusted for 2004 inflation, that’s $1,051 and $105 respectively). Now, however, many of us can (and routinely do) drop thousands of dollars on a TV, and hundreds more on a stereo system. Comparing apples to oranges? Sure. A high-definition, widescreen, plasma TV is a different animal than a 1970’s era color TV. But that’s exactly the point. We’re buying better toys. Not just better, more toys too. According to the Consumer Electronics Association, the average U.S. household now owns 25 consumer electronics products and spends more than $1,250 annually on electronics.⁵ Better and more toys, contributing to retail sales of over $125 billion in 2005, and all the while the cost of producing electronic components and accessories has gone down.

Similarly, much of the available healthcare data supports an increase in spending and quality (as opposed to costs). For example, over the past 30 years, there has been a steady decline in visits to general and family practitioners, but a 60% increase in visits to specialists.⁶ We are choosing to pay more for specialists, and in return we receive the expertise and advanced procedures that only a specialist can provide for many ailments.