The Markets Institute

You might note that I haven’t posted for a while. While I would like to say that I’ve been busy at the Winter Olympics, the truth is I’ve been heads-down on the launch of a new non-profit, non-partisan research unit, The Markets Institute.

The idea for the Institute came from the incredible amount of data continually collected by Moddition. While we focus on clients, to do what we do, we literally have to track virtually every industry, every sector, from their ideas to the final sales of their products and services.

With all that incoming information and analysis that goes into extracting useful understanding, there was a great deal of value that could come from looking at the big picture, rather than just at solutions for a specific client.

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You don't need much to get to that "Ah-Ha" moment

Survive the recession but not the recovery? File that under “most unfortunate irony.”

“Innovation” is thrown around today like re-engineering was in the ’90’s — as something magical that will cure every economic and company woe. Innovation is expected in products, services, business processes, research, social communications, and of course technology. We know that without rethinking just about everything we do, we’re never get going, let alone get ahead.

But what I run into every day are businesses balking at innovating anything besides ways to cut costs — and those tendencies are understandable. Many companies are purely in survival mode, having let go everyone they could, reeled in every cost and cut back every activity possible. And that latter item is a real problem — cutting back on every activity often means cutting back on innovation.

As someone who has designed a great many products and services I know that it can take some serious cash to innovate and create. Money that just isn’t available right now for too many companies.

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Frozen with fear — that’s one way to describe the state most American businesses are in today. No different than most American consumers. Virtually everyone is afraid to move forward as the future is so uncertain. So we wait to see what’s going to happen. If the banks will start loaning. If demand will pick up. If the market will rally for a while.

In that waiting, people seek the silver bullet, which during this tough time seems to be “innovation,” as if the very term would resurrect the economy just by our focusing on “it.” One would think somehow that innovation, which has always been a hallmark of American business, was something entirely new that we have not been doing, or not doing nearly enough of. And that by simply being innovative we could end our economic woes.

In fact we’ve now so over-used, over-hyped, and over-exposed the term that it has essentially lost its meaning.

The truth is innovation is neither something new nor is it magic bullet. It will not save the economy.

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