"Most players go where the puck is. I go where the puck will be." -- Wayne Gretzky

[This quote, or variants, have been attributed to many athletes, but I've from ice hockey country, so I'll stick with this attribution.]

There is much talk about innovation these days, at least in the US media, which mostly seems driven by a conviction/fear that innovation is all we have left once all the rest of the jobs go "off-shore".

I do accept that innovation has been fostered and nurtured by some of the traditional cultural attitudes in the US and Western Europe, and inhibited by some of the traditional cultural attitudes in India and many Asian countries. On the other hand, I am not so sure that those traditional cultural values aren't changing against us today. Looking at Asia recently, particularly China and Japan, but certainly not exclusively, I see all sorts of signs that innovation is creeping in, and cultural values which inhibit creativity are slipping away. At the same time, the US seems to be getting a bit stodgy, and innovation seems to be slipping. (more ...)

So, what is the answer? I could follow my brothers, one of whom is already living in Thailand, and another is following him. In other words, we could go where the puck is now, but that hardly seems to address the issue. Nah, we need to go where the puck will be, and that means less geographically then mentally. Take a look around. As Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times yesterday, the Intel Science Competition involves 50,000 US kids, and six million Chinese kids. He says this means we need a Manhattan Project for science, and perhaps the US does, but I think it misses the point for us individually and for IBM generally. Let's say for a moment that we can't catch up and stay the innovators of the world. Let's just suppose that China is going to "win". So, where will the puck be then?

To answer that question, stop looking at the priorities of today, and look at the priorities as they are likely to be tomorrow. What would a couple of billion Chinese people need (yes, India will soon have more people, but seems less poised for taking over the innovative leadership than China)? What will their priorities be? Resource allocation and efficiency (imagine a billion middle class Chinese trying to live like Americans and you picture a world stripped to the bone) is one top priority - making do with less. Business process is another, as the economies of scale for such a large population will demand it. Collaboration is another, since the Chinese culture is more integrated and less individualistic than ours, and will require more structured ways of communication and integration than some western businesses. Of course, it will be a slightly different collabroation than we use, but still collaboration.

Lucky for us, collaboration is something we do. Business process too. So, how can we tailor those for a growing Chinese business class? The Chinese can do all the innovation they want, but if they find existing applications, technologies and methods of doing business that meet their needs, the resource allocation and efficiency priorities will play in our favor. They'll move on to innovate in other areas, such as nanotechnology and energy production and business streamlining, and leave us (the bigger us in this case) with the collaboration and business process and workflow and a billion customers. That's where the puck will be.

Of course, if we aren't ready, or our software and applications don't work with their culture or language or mindset, they'll just innovate around us, and we'll be stuck the way Americans are with crappy cell phones while the Europeans and Asians are using a whole generation more advanced technology.

So, I suggest that we (the smaller we, not the larger US or EC who may have different priorities) shouldn't necessarily try to out-innovate, but rather should make sure we are positioned properly for the wave and our surfboards are up to the task, and we'll be carried along too. Are you ready to catch the wave?