PROOF THAT INNOVATION IS ALL ABOUT CULTURE

Another X-Prize has been announced, NASA held a competition to improve their spacesuits, DARPA is awarding prizes for self-guided vehicles.
A decade ago these initiatives would have been completely funded by their sponsoring organizations and the government. Instead 40 years of failed innovations, budget reductions, six-sigma management and bureaucracy has brought us to the point where government has realized that they do not have a culture of innovation.
To many this is a scary new world where they are being forced to take all the technical risk of innovating without the opportunity to participate in the marketing upside.
Instead it helps incubate what I think will be the next evolution of our nation, the entrepreneur economy.
A trend that began with the internet bubble, brand you, hackers, and MicroSerfs, is spreading far beyond the IT industry. Engineering, design, and product design is adopting a culture of innovation. By forcing individuals and companies to compete they are (finally) forcing our applied sciences to improve their performance.