The death of technological innovation?

Before you read this article, look around you. Take it all in, for a second. What do you see? Then compare that to what you had seen at the end of the 20th century. You will notice one thing, there is a slowdown in the growth of innovation. You don’t get to see truly revolutionary, world changing products nowadays. Companies aren’t experimenting. Innovation is practically nil.

The truly great stuff that everyone knows and loves were invented before the 21st century..

Why?

From what you have observed, you will see that a true example of lack of technological innovation can be seen in the field of games. The end of the 20th century witnessed the launch of many word changing iconic game franchises such as Mario, Half-Life and the like. Now, all you see is the yearly revision of the very same franchises.

There is a reason to this. You see, during the 20th century, everyone was coming to embrace the new technologies and inventions from that time, such as the internet, video games, etc. People were just starting to see the potential of it. Truly determined people opened their own companies and made things that THEY love, without thinking or worrying about the product’s sales. At that time, all the companies were new and fresh and they experimented. A LOT. They tried a variety of things, followed their passion and that is why they made it big.

Their products were great because the companies, at that time were still fresh and the people who were running them were pumped up with passion and innovative ideas. Now, those very same companies have evolved much and have gone from small scale passion fueled companies to large scale world encompassing money-fueled entities. Nowadays, all they do is focus on the money and ONLY the money. No more passion. No more innovation.

Companies are afraid to experiment as they fear about how their intended audience will take it. Will their products fail? Will they be succesful? Companies are faced with these questions and so they go with the tried and tested old recipes they had invented earlier, when they weren’t soulless corporate entities but instead were passion driven. The companies of old didn’t have to worry about that. At that time, the technology industry was still maturing and so there was space for experimentation. Experimentation meant innovation. Plus, if the product failed, the companies still had their passion fueled dogged determination that helped them to get back up again.

 

Apple was one of the only companies that never stopped innovating and even it’s innovative level has gone down much. Proof? When was the last time that Apple unveiled a truly life changing device that still had an impact? It was 2010, 4 years ago, when the iPad was unveiled. Before that, was in 2007, with the release of the very first iPhone, that truly changed the way we interact with our smartphones. Now, it is 2014 and Apple has gone 4 years without the release of a life changing product. Or even slightly innovative.

That is the complete opposite of Apple in it’s early years, when it released a multitude of products. Some were succesful. Some failed. Apple didn’t back down from the failed products but instead unleashed upon the world another myriad of products. That was the nature of other companies too, at that time.

Another reason for the lack of innovation is the ranking hierarchy in companies. At the very top of the food chain, yes even above the founders, sit the board of directors, who control the company’s every move. Have a hip new idea? Unless the Board approves it, you can’t proceed. And if the product isn’t successful, the board can even oust the founders itself from their very creations.

Yes that is extent of power of the board. Due to the board, companies are afraid to experiment.

So, the powers of the board and the corporate nature of the companies are slowing down innovation. Would Innovation completely die? The answers are in the next section…

Is Innovation Doomed Forever?

Now now, don’t just reach out to conclusions. Innovation is not doomed and probably never will. That’s the nature of us humans and we can’t stop innovating.

Even now, there is innovation going on in the world, but it is no longer in the hands of the bigger companies. It has now been left to startups which have passion making them go on, passion allowing them to experiment, passion allowing them to innovate.

With crowd-funding services like Kickstarter, anyone. yes even you, can follow their dreams and introduce their dream product to the masses, EVEN when you don’t have the funding. If your idea is good, you are sure to recieve funding on Kickstarter and other crowdfunding services. So, you no longer need money to start your dream company. You only need a great idea.

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Kickstarter has seen the launch of many innovative products such as the OUYA, the PonoPlayer, etc and these products are headed by normal company who want to launch their dream product to the masses. Unlike the biggies of the corporate world which are headed by emotionless, corporate entities who live and thrive for money, who cannot find the passion they had in them in their youth. This is where the real innovation lies.

In this world, there still are people who want to change the world; who want to innovate; who are not afraid. These people are daily testing out new technologies that may very well be a part of our future. One person of that sort is Elon Musk: Read about what he has done here. These people follow their passion and are infact the pioneers of innovation.

While in this article we mentioned that the innovation of big companies has slowed, it is not the complete story. World encompassing companies like Google and Apple have their own secret labs where many new technologies are being protoyped and tested. Google’s own is called X Lab. At Google X, many new technologies are tested and very few of them are revealed to the public. The latest Google product, Google Glass? The one which is trying hard to change how we look at the world? It was born out of Google X Labs.

Apple too has it’s own secret base for testing out new emerging technologies. Others do too.

With startups and people like Elon Musk and the secret labs of major tech companies, we have a wider view on innovation. On one hand we can say that innovation is slowing down. But when we look at startups, crowdfunding services like Kickstarter, the secret labs of Google, etc, we can say that innovation is still there. We may also say that now may be the best time for technological innovation as anyone can set up a company of their own, without the involvement of money. But we can definitely say that innovation has moved from the bigger companies to the small scale startups, who have the fire, who have the Force in them. Even Google X Labs is fueled by Google’s acquisition of many startup companies.

Innovation is there. It is fast and thriving. But it has shifted base….