History’s Lessons

When it comes to innovation, CEOs can learn a lot from ages past

History, so they say, we are doomed to repeat, unless we learn its lessons. When it comes to innovation, by definition we won’t be repeating ourselves – but perhaps we still can learn from its history.

There have been waves of innovation often so clear cut that we’ve given them names: the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Industrial Era. As the names indicate, there is often a breakthrough, a missing piece that suddenly falls in place igniting a new wave of discovery. Eventually, the cycle plateaus – not that innovation ceases, but the pace slows and society absorbs the new standards before hitting another “aha” and taking off on a run of innovation once again.

Over the past century, America has seen a few spikes that were brought about by specific eras. Arguably, the big movers for innovation in the past century were the World Wars, the Space Race and digital technology. Innovations borne, respectively, of necessity, vision and opportunity.

The Mother of Invention
Necessity being the mother of invention, the War era brought forth innovations essential not only to waging wars, but to recovering from them. Rapid discoveries in chemistry delivered destructive forces like chlorine gas and mustard gas. ENIAC, a 30-ton computer designed to calculate artillery firing tables, was first used in calculations for the hydrogen bomb. Meanwhile innovations in the healing sciences brought improved prosthetics, new methods of rehabilitation, and the adoption of the century’s most critical medical discovery, penicillin.

Transistor technology, on which all current electronics is based, was invented between the wars in both Canada and Germany. Throughout World War II scientists experimented with transistors, although they didn’t get it right until just after the War’s end. The technology was incorporated into electronics within months, giving birth to the semiconductor at the heart of today’s computers.

The Wars also led to social innovations. Women entered the workforce in great numbers. The Civil Rights era was more potent and powerful in part because of the African American soldiers’ contributions and experiences during the war. The GI Bill was introduced, and the increased access to college education remade America’s workforce.

Beyond the Moon
Lest we think that only war can give birth to great innovations, consider the second set of circumstances that fired the creative imaginations of the 20^th century. When President Kennedy declared our intention to reach the moon, he spoke not only in practical, scientific terms, but in visionary ones.

And nothing has ever inspired quite so much as the mission to reach the Moon. American children wore astronaut suits and played with models of the Saturn V rocket. Worldwide, millions of people sat rapt in front of their radios and televisions, listening to the crackling voices or watching the salt-and-pepper images broadcast by Apollo 11.

Out of the Space Race tumbled countless inventions, many of them soon adopted by consumers. They were promoted into our households through that other post-War invention, television, and the innovation that it in turn spurred – TV advertising. Tang and microwaves both managed to find a place on kitchen shelves.

The explosion of discoveries was not limited to applied technology, but also to the humbling reality that we live on an isolated planet that ultimately is very small. This consciousness gave rise to a growing awareness that we must act as Earth’s stewards, and fueled a series of discoveries about environment and planetary health. What we’ve learned has raised both concerns and opportunities for new innovations to address them.

A Digital Revolution
So we come to our own era, built on the Digital Revolution, where innovation comes at a rapid pace and can be applied across processes, businesses and geographies. Not just in response to an imminent threat or to achieve one collective goal, but to harness the possibilities of technology for your business, your community, and the world.

Digital technology brought the Information Age: the human genome sequence, with its potential to improve human health; satellites that track storms and monitor terrorists; global business with personnel connecting across time zones and continents. The Hubble Space Telescope lets us view the universe, and Google Earth shows us our own backyards.

Now we are in the Attention Age, marked by the ability to create, consume (and hopefully synthesize and leverage) information instantly. We are experiencing several waves of influences at once, social media being just one of many powerful new aspects of technology. The speed at which we, as a species, are transitioning through these stages is staggering.

3 Lessons From History
So, what lessons does history have for the smart CEO? Doubtless many, among them these few:

1) Know your time. It isn’t necessary to be the first to employ technology, but it is death to be the last. When the transistor radio rolled off the line, every device that came before it was obsolete. If you haven’t already adopted all the efficiencies the current technology offers you, you’ve given the other guy a tremendous competitive advantage.

2) Be a strategic adopter. Remember, Tang and Betamax are both gone. Don’t just instantly buy into the latest technology. Employ technology solutions strategically, not simply to be with the times, but to benefit from them.

3) Keep your eye on science. Not merely the science that directly impacts you, but science generally. New discoveries in hard science may happen years before they translate into applications that ignite a new wave of business. The transistor was patented twenty years before anybody figured out what to do with it; Alexander Fleming likewise discovered penicillin decades before it was ever administered as a life-saving drug. Science can tell you where the next fortune lies.

These are times of opportunity and greatness. This is our time to make history.

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