Imperative Need for America to Become an Innovation Nation
Arianna Huffington

On a recent flight, I started reading "Innovation Nation ," the new book by Harvard professor, psychiatrist, Broadway producer, biotech entrepreneur, business consultant, film producer, author and jazz musician John Kao.

It was both frightening and inspiring. Frightening because of the details it provides about the ways America is falling behind the rest of the world; inspiring because Kao imbues it with a sense of optimism and great possibility.

Yes, there is much to be concerned about -- evidence that we are heading in the wrong direction ("We are rapidly becoming the fat, complacent Detroit of nations," he writes). But Kao reminds us of all the times in the past America has rallied, marshalling its forces to innovate and rise to meet great challenges.

After Pearl Harbor, America's naval force was decimated. But, Kao points out, just three years later, "America had a hundred aircraft carriers fully armed with new planes, pilots, tactics, and escort ships, backed by new approaches to logistics, training methods, aircraft plants, shipyards, and women workers" along with "such game changing innovations as the B-29 . . . and nuclear fission."

Same with our reaction to the Soviets' launch of Sputnik, when "we responded with massive funding for education, revamped school curricula in science and math, and launched a flurry of federal initiatives that eventually put Neil Armstrong in position to make his 'giant leap for mankind.'"

So, even though we currently find ourselves "basking in our faded glory," Kao believes "America has the potential to become the first (innovation nation), a blend of enlightened self-interest and outward-reaching altruism."

But first we have to embrace the sense that great things are still possible and that our best days still lie ahead. That mindset is a prerequisite for innovation and getting things done. Without it, the seeds of innovation wither in a soil that is an arid mix of negativism and defeatism. With it, America can put a commitment to innovation front and center, the way countries as diverse as China, Australia, Finland, Singapore, Canada and India are doing.

This commitment has to come from both the top down and the bottom up.

There are so many amazing things happening at the local level, with citizens and not-for-profits making an unprecedented commitment to the idea of giving back. And we need to do all we can to encourage these initiatives because government alone can never fully address all our social needs.

David Brooks makes a very compelling case for this approach in his column on our "broken society." Brooks focuses on the "communitarian" approach being advocated by conservative British writer Phillip Blond, author of the book "Red Tory."

Brooks details how revolutions on both the left and the right have led to "an atomized, segmented society" -- one that needs to be replaced by a society "oriented around relationships and associations."

Blond's communitarian approach meshes with Kao's emphasis on altruism and innovation that is not solely informed by a desire to invent something that will make you rich, but to invent something that will enhance the overall good of society.

Kao points out that innovation, despite a widely held perception, is not only about science and high tech creations. He cites the rise of microlending as a powerful example of a social innovation that works at the grassroots level.

At the same time, the problems our society -- and, indeed, much of the world -- is facing are too monumental to be solved solely by the for-profit and the not-for-profit private sectors. We still need, in some ways more than ever, the raw power that only big government initiatives -- and big government appropriations -- can deliver.

President Obama clearly understands the importance of an innovation agenda. In announcing the kick off of his Educate to Innovate campaign -- a nationwide effort to move American students back to the top in science and math education -- he made the point that "this nation wasn't built on greed. It wasn't built on reckless risk. It wasn't built on short-term gains and shortsighted policies. It was forged on stronger stuff, by bold men and women who dared invent something new or improve something old -- who took big chances on big ideas, who believed that in America all things are possible."

We've had much discussion about whether this will be an American century or one dominated by China or some other foreign power. Kao believes America will still be an "indispensable nation," but that innovation will go global.

"The next big ideas can now truly come from anywhere," he writes. "Talent is not confined to any culture or geography. No one has a monopoly on ideas. And that will make the world a thrilling place to inhabit, one in which the catalytic nature of diversity and the power of innovation on a planetary basis may well unleash the full potential of human beings to better themselves and to create a world well worth living in."

On the title page of his book, Kao quotes Winston Churchill: "The American people always do the right thing after they've tried every other alternative." Right now, we are largely trying every other alternative. Time to do the right thing.

Available at Amazon.com:

Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back

Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life

The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy

The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics

Bush on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks

The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House

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