“None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be, or where the new jobs will come from. Thirty years ago, we couldn’t know that something called the Internet would lead to an economic revolution. What we can do – what America does better than anyone – is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook. In America, innovation doesn’t just change our lives. It’s how we make a living.” - President Obama’s State of the Union Address Read the full transcript (Courtesy of the NY Times)
The key phrase for me was at the end of the speech was when he reiterated the slogan “We do big things”.
Why? Because I had already read earlier in the day that China has announced it is planning to create the world’s biggest mega city by merging nine cities to create a metropolis twice the size of Wales with a population of 42 million.
“This is the China that McKinsey & Co envisions when it projects that the country could build a new Chicago every year for the next two decades, including more than 1500 new skyscrapers higher than 30 storeys.” – Crouching Tiger, Soaring Cranes and Rumbling Doubts SMH
For the Chinese it was a brilliant piece of geo-political spin. It said quite clearly and very succinctly ”You can talk about it but the simple reality is we are out there doing it… and the rest of the world knows it”.
The problem is President Obama is right. America today is a Nation of Google and Facebook. It is also the America of Disney, Apple, American Idol and Desperate Housewives but the simple reality is in the global scheme of things these are not Big Things. Compared to building eMetropoli that manufacture goods for export to the world and Mega Cities of 42 Million people Google and Facebook are mere parlor games.
“If we seize the opportunity offered by globalization we will bequeath to our children a country unmatched in wealth, power and opportunity… but if we squander that opportunity we will at best have a lower standard of living and at worst finds that another country has moved into the new era so decisively that it can dominate us” – Newt Gingrich Speaker of the House Circa 1995
The internet that America is so proud of has made the world that much smaller. So much so that the rest of the world now stands at America’s doorstep banging on the gates seeking to secure their share of any future prosperity.
As I have said before it was Britain that invented the Industrial Revolution but it was the USA that ultimately perfected and profited from it. Today it is America that has invented the Information Revolution but a big question mark hangs over its ability to profit from it.
If America knew how to profit from the Information Revolution it would not have the Global Advertising Platforms of Google and Facebook as its flagship innovations. It would have new and exciting and rapidly growing corporations that have built, just like the Chinese, the new eMetropoli across America that are busy creating and exporting American Goods and Services to the rest of the world.
The reason this hasn’t happened isn’t for lack of ideas or know how. It is simply, just as the British encountered at the end of the Victorian era, a leadership problem.
I suspect, but I may be wrong, that American Management Theory – much of it formulated in the early part of the 20th Century – is now either total obsolete, or at the very least largely redundant, thanks to the brave new world of Globalised commerce facilitated by Information Technology revolution.
This means if America is to continue to lead the world throughout the 21st Century then it is going to have to totally revamp its thinking about how capitalism works. After all isn’t that what China has done? Just like Japan in the 1950′s and 60′s it has reinvented capitalism from the ground up to work within its cultural constraints.
The question is can America do the same thing or is it going to rely one more time on its “Cowboy Innovation” mythologies to see it through? After all, even America stopped watching Westerns back in the 1980′s.
As I have said before the challenge America faces isn’t ideas or creativity. It’s its ability to execute that is in question. To be effective in a Global Economy Corporate America has to move forward from it “I Think, You Build” innovation model to a “You Think, I Build” Innovation model.
Put very simply the difference between America and China today is America is all about ”I Think, You Build” while China is all about ”You Think, I Build”.
Understand that simple message and you’ll understand why America today is a Nation of Google and Facebook and not a Nation building Mega Cities.
“China’s economy has moved from being 9 per cent of the size of America’s to about 60 per cent in 2009. The International Monetary Fund is expecting it to reach 90 per cent in 2015. If so, it won’t be long before China’s the biggest economy.” The giant that keeps Australia the lucky country – SMH
Posted on January 26, 2011
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