Technology will become commoditised by China and India, they say, being dispersed and adopted almost instantly after it's created. Economic value will arise instead from the powers of the right brain - creativity, imagination, empathy, aesthetics.
Exhibit A in their evience is the Apple iPod. Apple didn't invent the MP3 music player; several models had been around for a few years before anyone had heard of the iPod, but they had never gone anywhere. Apple took an existing product and gave it an elegant design, creative a simple, intuitive user interface, then added the business innovation of the iTunes Music Store, and somehow imbued the whole package with coolness. The result is 75% market share in music players and online music sales, a reordering of the music industry, and a multibillion-dollar boost to Apple's market value. The key wasn't technology. It was creativity, design and a deep empathy with the customer.
In a different industry, how does Target thrive as a discount retailer against the massive power of Wal-Mart, a company more than five times its size that commands by far the world's most advanced retail computer systems? In part it does so by arranging for some of the world's top designers, such as Michael Graves and Isabelle de Borchgrave, to design some of the home's most pedestrian products, such as teakettles and breadbaskets, and then selling them in massive volume at discount prices. Following that strategy, Target can never be commoditised.
The phenomenon is sufficiently widespread that the MFA degree - master of fine arts - is gaining ground on the MBA as the preferred graduate degree for young people who want to make their mark in business. New York University has even begun offering a joint MBA/MFA degree.
Creativity and innovation have always been important; what's new is that they're becoming economically more valuable by the day.
Geoff Colvin, Talent Is Overrated
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