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• Finding #4: Breakthroughs in technology in the next century will not be primarily from within industries & fields of thought,
but Between the Fields of Thought.
When asked where then new innovations would come from, most people concurred that a shift had occurred in the source of new innovation in the last decade. Where formerly innovation tended to come from inside a specific field of learning, usually aligned with a university department (e.g. Engineering, Biology, Chemistry, etc), new innovation is now being generated by cross connecting and networking across differing and multiple fields of endeavor.
- Implications
- A world where innovation is trans-field means the managers of innovation must be integrators, (a new skill set), and have the ability to talk the different technologies.
- Differing specializations require a deep understanding of professional cultural differences, thought patterns, and specialized analytical processes -- no easy task.
- Evidence: (Sometimes called Convergence or Technology Hybridization)
- Computers and Biotech = Genomics
- Data Systems and Biotech = Bioinformatics
- Chemicals and Biotech = Chemogenomics
- Telecomm and Computing = Internet
- Automobiles and Defense Electronics = GPS
- Other Examples
- Internet and Home Construction
- Teaching and Computing
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