In the same week that he attends the Google Zeitgeist event – the internet giant’s third annual conference for big ideas and blue sky thinking – Gordon Brown is also being warned that Britain is in danger of falling well behind competitor countries and emerging economies because of complacency over levels of business innovation.
Nesta (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) published a report yesterday in which it suggests that the UK ‘performs poorly’ in innovation and that ‘there is too much complacency’ in the face of ever stronger competition.
I guess the problem is compounded by a decade of relatively pain-free growth that we have enjoyed, which in many ways detracts from the drive to innovate – a drive that is very much at the heart of the developing world as it rushes headlong to catch and overtake us in some areas, especially manufacturing.
Much as I’m all for the good times, a little of Mervyn King’s pain can sometimes be just the impetus that is required to cause us to look hard again at our businesses and identify where we can do things more effectively and more cleverly – in other words where we can innovate to save.
By the way – try finding any press on the Google event. Or better still try Googling it! Is it just me, or is there something increasingly Kafka-esque about the big co and its plans for world domination?
