What's in a job...

If you read Andy Grove's article in the recent issue of Business Week, he does leave you wondering about what is going to happen to America's superiority in the area of innovation. I think most of what he says is right. But maybe not all of it. For example, the U.S still reigns supreme in design innovation. The iPhone is one example. I can probably say the same for a lot of software products. However the U.S has lost significant speed in terms of implementation (and manufacturing industry as Andy claims in his article). I feel the science of implementation is being perfected in Asia beyond what it ever was in the U.S. Scaling and Quality share the same commentary. The U.S has become a land of ideas. However we must remember that ideas are dime a dozen and easy to copy. One out of thousand ideas ever succeed in the marketplace and ideas by  themselves never are a competitive advantage. In fact most simple ideas are improvements thought upon current technology and are built on the foundation of knowing the implementation or manufacturing side of the equation. In the near future, most of this innovation is going to come from outside since nothing is made here in the U.S except needles and specialty screws...