Why innovation policy must be innovative

About a year ago I came across the work of the historian and archaeologist Ian Morris, who observed that "change is caused by lazy, greedy, frightened people looking for easier, more profitable, and safer ways of doing things". This Morris Theorem essentially presents human sloth, greed, and fear as the key drivers for our society's appetite for change – change of our environment to our own benefit. That is what we call innovation: the purpose is an easier, richer, safer life for all of us.

Pushing the boundaries – Epilogue

Over the past few weeks I've visited the four quadrants of the innovation landscape (the short series of posts started here) to get a better idea of the boundaries between the quadrants and how they are pushed. Now it's time to zoom out again to take a look at the landscape as a whole, with two questions to consider: Is the landscape as symmetric as it seems? And how fast do the boundaries move?

Taking a walk across the innovation landscape

Recently I have described my concept of an innovation landscape along two axes: the demand for innovation, represented by the problems society is faced with, and the supply of innovation, represented by the ingenious ideas that have the potential to solve those problems. Today, I'll take a closer look at the four corners of this landscape.