Innovation, Suffocation & Trump Nation

By: Naseem Javed

Innovation at best is like watering a nice healthy plant, making it grow and blossom; however, watering without the plant is just getting the dirt wet. Nothing happens. Currently, all over the world and with more than 100 major innovation themed events yearly, complete with great photo opportunities for local and national leadership, most nations have little to show for these super expensive efforts. It seems that we talk a lot about innovation and find ourselves stuck in the suffocation of great ideas. And, suddenly the Trump nation erupts on a high note!

Innovative excellence is the most critical component of creating grassroots prosperity in any country.

The true performance of innovative excellence, however, can only shine when it bounces to life with highly fertile and energetic supremacy of nouveau entrepreneurialism, where small, medium and large enterprises ride the waves of economical development impacting prosperity. Sprinkling the sand will not get us there.

The stentorian voice roars from the middle class over the massiveglobal disconnect with national leadership and their inadequate handling of emerging and mid size enterprises. The world is screaming in unison for new global age methodologies. Are Brexit and Trumpization the beginning of the new monster changes for the world; is this a breaking or a turning point?  Why is the defeat of Italian Referendum now creating massive political uncertainty for the European Union?

During the last decade some 70,000 factories disappeared in USA alone or about a million plus amongst G8 nations. The gradual disappearance of these industries never became the hot and prime topic of serious discussions and now anything resembling these disasters is out in the open and desperately shouting for an immediate fix.  Selective nationalism is on the rise. Local grassroots prosperity is critical and entrepreneurial leadership at the top level is now the new survival.

Without thriving businesses and entrepreneurial gusto, innovation mantras are at best just day dreaming.

The World Awaits

Without thriving businesses and entrepreneurial gusto, innovation mantras are at best just day dreaming. True, innovation at very high levels made great contributions, but in reality life on earth is about real jobs not a dream ‘Mars mission’ project. Without a doubt, today world-class innovative excellence is far more important than any funding itself. It is essential to note that only ideas worthy of investing get funding in the first place. The question becomes how do you create a massive shift and connect the entrepreneurial dots that will lead to innovative ideas that will lead to success. How do we fix a problem that has slowly become a catastrophic concern? Healing the conundrum will first need some bitter medicine

FACT: The world will awake to a new reality on January 20th 2017 when Trumpization kicks in and the fast-track global age style of execution begins with the first 100 days plan. Half of the world will dance on tables with joy, while the other half will hide under them. Good or bad, the Trump nation begins.

FACT: At no other time in the history of the world have there been so many new ideas and dramatic options colliding for the betterment of mankind. In spite of this, the ideas are equally crushed by lack of global age skills. Some billion new unemployed people are expected due to massive automation and blockchain.

FACT: The crusade to innovation with modern slogans, incubators and start-up heavens have not produced the expected turnarounds. Things are either standing stand still or sliding backward. The deep silence is taking over.

FACT: Innovation events are either very focused on technology issues or academic approaches while deployment is disconnected from today’s entrepreneurial challenges and realities. After the events, the 264 remaining days seem to bring about very little progress or worse, nothing happens.

FACT: The absence of senior level political leadership with bold debates and combative discussions on hard core issues of innovative excellence and achieving global image supremacy is the proof of a serious lack of knowledge. True and real Entrepreneurial component is so visibly absent in the bureaucratic maze.

To run a trillion dollar economy like the USA, Trumpization is gathering leadership teams of billionaires in place of the traditional assembly of Ivy League political savvy and academic experts at the highest helms. The Federal Bureaus of all types of governments of almost all nations all over the world are mostly nestled with complex bureaucracies where the majority of senior leadership flourishes and awaits annual bonuses, while the same nations at times are bleeding opportunity losses at the rate of billion dollars a day.  Special skills set for special demands.

EXAMPLE: If flying a kite was a test of innovative excellence then making a kite requires an entrepreneur and an innovative team to make and deploy the thread. Such precise combinations, with the right skills, provide the actual kite flying experience. The lift and the somersault actions necessary to fly high and conquer the sky must exist in order to execute the novel plans. Without the kite, innovations teams are just holding the thread glaring at the future and pretending to fly a kite.

Despite the fact that the unique minds of entrepreneurs are so different than those of the academically brilliant innovation experts, it’s essential to merge for success.

While the highly academic achievements in the science of professional innovation management are already overflowing, the collision of innovation with nouveau entrepreneurialism is critically missing at the grassroots level because actual battlefields of entrepreneurialism grounds are baron and are far apart on separate deployment styles. The dry and complex academic and bureaucratic approaches with complex rules and formalities keep them apart. Despite the fact that the unique minds of entrepreneurs are so different than those of the academically brilliant innovation experts, it’s essential to merge for success.

FACT: The last 100 earth shattering commercializations were delivered by entrepreneurs and almost all of them were often rejected by leading academician and financial experts. The entrepreneurial alpha leader is critically mandatory to commercialization, followed by a brilliant team to lead the pack with innovative excellence is equally critical.

Often political leaders promise anything, while academia conducts multi-year long feasibility studies; the call for a new ‘world order’ now is turning into ‘internal national order’. The loud call of internal order is to re-visit the country’s own talent and national agenda in order to make it great again. This plea is on the rise. Make your own country great and its citizenry the first recipient in line for such progress is the ‘order’ of the day. Smart politicians are already on alert.

The fact remains that in this globally competitive place, where nice photogenic schematics and fancy charts very often results in mediocre or less competitive advantages, the political correctness at this stage should fly out of the window. The hardcore discussions on Detroit and its economic meltdown were almost banned on mainstream media and political agendas.

Innovation as a contributing feature most of the time is a very grey area and gets hidden as layers of ‘invisible excellence’ pile up. In the entrepreneurial minds, it’s all about the ‘visible excellence, where the deep desire to create and attract a distinct ‘competitive advantage’ that directly and visibly influence like key performance, design, value and price. Therefore the styles and types of innovative excellence carry very different weights in the entrepreneurial minds.

How to mobilize professional innovative talents across a nation?

Millions of high quality entrepreneurs all over the world are restless and anxious to park in friendly, safe geographies. They want a place where they can operate under affable incentives of taxes and special residencies. They also want the respectability of being labeled as real ‘job creators’. Nations that are ready and capable of structuring such massive initiatives can offer unlimited access to unlimited professional innovation experts completely free–much like the national health plan of Canada, unlimited, easy and free access across the country in every sector, automated and digitally alive.

Heads of states: seeking survival?

Nationalize innovation and academical skills; sort of, make them available, without any selective objections, 20-page forms or twisted obligations, totally free to all entrepreneurs across the nation no matter how crazy and odd the concept sounds. Officiate a major Master National Entrepreneurial Manifesto. Recognize all entrepreneurs of all sizes and types with varying success and history and declare them the most valuable asset of the nation. This free and unrestricted access will mobilize an entrepreneurial revolution and create massive grassroots prosperity, and not the other way around in the present approach.

Entrepreneurs get top level advantages and are able to jump to higher levels of performance and competitive advantage. The professional innovation experts get compensated by the government and receive incentives only upon achieving success. Successful winning entrepreneurs would be committed to a pre-determined fee or percentage, but once again only after achieving success.

10,000 entrepreneurs working on 10,000 projects with some 5,000 Professional Innovation Experts deploying their knowledge along the way will change the dynamics of the world. India has 100 million entrepreneurs and only if 10 percent reach success, it would be enough to make India the leading entrepreneurial nation in the world.

The population-rich-nation vs. knowledge-rich-nation factors come into play

“Population Rich Nations: The global economical balance will shift towards population rich nations, which are mostly emerging economies, over knowledge-rich nations that are mainly developed economies. Nations with hundreds of millions of energetic, business-hungry natives who explore and deploy the entrepreneurial skills in search of global spotlight will significantly enjoy the influx of cheap technology. Mathematical models show some extra ordinary shifts over the next decade. According to McKinsey, the emerging economies by 2020 will spend 30 trillion dollars yearly, this would create a new landscape of new global economy. Beneficiaries: New global-age, Asia friendly operators. Enemies: The old localized centricity. Adjustments: Study the world map daily and circumnavigate the earth slowly.” (Population Rich: 15 Monster Trends, December 2014)

The Big Fat Questions

How large and dormant is the entrepreneurial talent of the nation? How eager is the nation to wake up all of these factors and merge them together? A model for success might be to bring in large numbers of foreign entrepreneurs and provide them with short term or long term creative parking and create a massive national integration program. The goal is to mobilize massive enterprises simultaneously across the nation.

No Extra Budgets Are Required

Government departments and agencies already have more than 50% underutilized services and resources. This is less about new budgets and more about rapid fire deployment that requires a clear and strong leadership to shakedown the trees of obstruction.

Connecting armies of entrepreneurs poised for innovative excellence and ready to engage massive numbers of experts into progressive development is the most desired aspect of this thinking. Conversely, this is the least discussed focus at a national level or in Forums. It seems that most nations have difficulty in dealing with the harsh realities in the entrepreneurial arenas. The silence of political leadership enters serious debates as bold new styles of dialogue emerge. Trumpization is an example of this type of creation.

Currently innovation is primarily focused on ‘hard asset based centricity’ but needs a dramatic jump to ‘soft power asset management mentality. Overlays of both asset types create far better global age results. This model calls for courageous and new thinking and should consider new and innovative programs and deployments.

Creating bulldozers of prosperity

Expothon Strategy: Create marathons of quadrupling exportability and innovative excellence. This is a model for creating 1000 to 1000,000 new jobs across the nation. Most importantly, it brings local grassroots prosperity? This innovative approach shows how to reenergize and mobilize 1,000 to 10,000 high potential local small, medium and large enterprises? It is a plan that will energize and rejuvenate governments and organizations.

To succeed in this new world, you will need to know how to train 1,000 to 10,000 founders, owners and job creator executives to become global age experts? It will become crucial to understand how to create massive transformational changes towards new global age models.

Fact: The world can easily absorb unlimited exportable ideas in unlimited vertical markets.
Fact: The well designed innovative ideas are worthy of such quadrupled volumes.
Fact: The entrepreneurial and dormant talents of a nation are capable of such tasks.
Fact: The new global age skills, knowledge and execution are now the most critical and missing links.

The tools for all such transformations are already available. The global age has already arrived; it’s the global age skills where the problems are hidden. Creating entrepreneurial prosperity is not that difficult. It can be done. India is doing it and will serve as a great example.

Next Steps

Power Questions: Is your region or country already blessed with 1,000-10,0000 high potential talented entrepreneurs and founders of enterprises who are anxious to reach upper stratospheres of innovative excellence by transforming themselves into global age thinkers and executioners? Is the National leadership ready to recognize such optimized and hidden entrepreneurial talents as the biggest and most timely assets of the nation? As a national agenda, is the local or national leadership ready to engage and debate with world-class thinking? Is Trumpization sending the right messages in this direction; will such progression make the country great again? Why not?

Stop Watering The Sand. Design the kite to conquer the sky. Create a highly customized National Entrepreneurial Manifesto for the nation. Don’t be left by the wayside, learn, levitate and soar. A new global age awaits you. Dare to innovate and create grassroots prosperity. If opposition persists learn fast and start draining the swamps.

By Naseem Javed

Further reading: Survival of innovation and economical development models:

In the age of soft-power-assets-management
when only hard asset centricity dominates
Originally Published January 2013

In the age of abundance
when for every good idea there are hundreds better ones…
Originally Published 2005

In the age of technocalamity
where massive free technologies make old establishments appear outdated and create new alternates
Originally Published September 2015

In the age of alpha dreamers
where billions of connected masses becomes the new voices of new progress
Originally Published July 2016

In the age of COPCAM
where ‘constant online presence and constant advancement modes’ are the new norm
Originally Published April 2016

In the age of Trumpization
where political correctness becomes a sign of incompetence and corruption and draining of swamps becomes mandatory
Originally Published October 2016

Make India Shine
Originally Published September 2016