Innovation: America's Economic Savior

            I was looking at my RSS feed from Fast Company and they had a really good article by Gregory Ferenstein.  In it, he talks to Thomas Friedman, who is a New York Times columnist and author of the book, That Used To Be Us, about how we, as a country, need to empower every worker with innovation. We need to make more of a priority of it, from employers to policy makers and I couldn’t agree more.

            America used to pride itself on being the leader in the world when it came to innovation.  Having that “Made in America” stamp on a product used to mean something.  Now, businesses are using that stamp as a way of saying, “Hey, we haven’t completely outsourced our company”.  Instead of staying stateside and keeping the local economy going, top US corporations are more then happy to have a foreign agency handle certain aspects.

            If we keep sending our jobs overseas, how can we expect to be a competitor in the world?  This country is taking the easy way instead of putting our nose to the grindstone.  We are more concerned about profits instead of staying true to what made us a global powerhouse: innovation. 

            Sure the world has changed and that there is software and machines that can take the place of people but a savvy CEO or manager can turn that around and use that to their advantage.  Friedman talks about Jeff Lesk, a partner at the law firm Nixon Peabody, and how an automated legal software program had replaced scores of lawyers because it could do what they were doing at a fraction of the cost.  To combat this, Lesk turned to innovation with one way by "finding legal-friendly ways of combining renewable energy and low-income housing tax credits to finance community real estate projects" (Ferenstein 2011).

            Sure, this example sounds complicated and requiring thinking outside the box but that is what made this country stand out among the others.  We used our creative thinking to come up with ways to generate revenue.  Being the GM for Higher Education Records, I have to find ways to get our name out there other then just doing shows.  At the moment, we are working with Asset Builders of America on putting on a hip-hop showcase that is also about helping low income families with financial literacy.  For this global economy to recover, innovation will be key and America needs to be on point for this endeavor.