Yesterday’s have a look at World Innovation Leaders involved me. Sure, the report’s conclusions have been okay. Nevertheless, we advised simply half of the story. It had me questioning about what was being produced.
Because of this, we may very well be speaking a couple of services or products, a course of, or a brand new enterprise model.
Innovative Goods and Services
Products and Services
Like this Harvard Business School online list, examples of innovations mostly include what you would expect.
- The wheel
- The printing press
- The lightbulb
- Automobiles
- Computers
- Cellular phones
- The internet
- The Bagless Vacuum Cleaner (This one surprised me.)
- iPhones
Meanwhile, the History Channel’s list was slightly different:
- The printing press
- ‘The compass
- Paper currency (This one delighted me.)
- Steel
- The electric light
- Domestication of the horse
- Transistors
- Magnifying lenses
- The telegraph
- Antibiotics
- The steam engine
The Nail and the Wheel
However, because a list says so little, we should say more.
In a 99% Invisible podcast, a structural engineer told us about the nail and the wheel. To really appreciate the nail, we have to go to a forge in ancient Rome where we would see the heat and what shaping it required. After placing a rod into an orangey (very hot) flame, you take it out, “whack it at the right angles in the right sequence.” Ancient blacksmiths had to make thousands, one by one for everything the Romans built.
Also long ago, in Mesopotamia, the first wheel had nothing to do with transport. As a potter’s device, it made vessels that stored food. Then, perhaps two thousand years later, someone reinvented the wheel and attached it to a cart. Dating back to the fourth millennium BCE, the archeological evidence was uncovered as a buried cart in the Russian North Caucasus. (Since then we have indeed been reinventing the wheel.)
After seeing how it is made (starting at 2 minutes 25 seconds), we can think of the nail as an amazing innovation:
Our Backside Line: Non-public and Social Return
Way back, Edwin Mansfield (1930-1997), a College of Pennsylvania economist, stated {that a} seemingly small innovation can have a big influence. Whereas he was referring to manufacturing inputs like thread, he might simply have been speaking concerning the nail or the wheel. As Mansfield defined, at first an innovation advantages its developer. However then, from there, some improvements go huge.
Rippling throughout thousands and thousands of people, the social return of a small invention–like a nail–deserves our repect.
My sources and extra: Yesterday’s publish of world innovation leaders impressed at this time’s publish. It began me questioning about particular examples. From there, I discovered different lists with totally different items and providers. But in addition, it took me to 99% Invisible and a beautiful guide from Roma Agrawal. Additionally, please notice that at this time we included a number of sentences from previous econlife posts and our featured picture is from 99% Invisible.
