A phrase seems to put all agree when we talk of "Made in Italy: " must innovate."
But perhaps the word, innovation, there are ambiguities that contains the word itself.
My reflection on this subject is daily, but in particular it is materialized in this post, a few days ago, reading a blog post of Director of Cefriel Fuggetta, on the subject.
With acuity, was reported to say many, many suggest, but few are at the end and I would add WRONG.
In fact, the greatest innovations are often not the result of research planned and completed successfully, but are the result of errors, often coarse, sometimes unbelievable.
They range from a cheese gone bad over the years become a DOC product, and ending with SMS "invented by mistake" by the telephone operators. If anyone remembers the Business Plan of the operators at the time, the "SMS" does not exist, as considered only a backup system on the network.
At the end of that "innovation" is spoken?
innovations and there are many different types, but living in China live the present moment you notice that they all have in common a fundamental point: try to innovate even at the cost of making a mistake .
On Chinese television this issue is so clear, the mistakes, which shows every day when they are offered case studies of Chinese entrepreneurs.
For each presentation does not start from the bottom (the success), but part of illustrating the difficulties and failures that the entrepreneur has had.
The failure, often repeated, the mood of the moments where, candidly admit, they thought they did not succeed in resolving the issue. The component of economic risk, and human pressures on people around.
And this approach in presenting the entrepreneurial success, the Chinese put it is in speaking of high tech innovation in the "cultivation" of the fish or the local tourism industry.
short to innovate, innovate should WANT. Have a real need.
But to innovate should be prepared to make mistakes, too many times. A failure.
To innovate, you need capital to support innovation in its development. But the financial system is currently structured finance for those who have a "track record" winning. But who is innovating, hardly possesses or may possess even a basic fact: winning innovation is unique, irreproducible .
So even if you've been successful, the next you have to start over, with no memory of your past successes, strong trained only in your ability to address the errors and difficulties encountered and should be rectified.
So there is no perfect consultant to innovate, because if it is not involved itself in the process are unlikely to lead to really be innovative and as he said Fuggetta, who did only "maybe" can tell a credible story!.
That said, the Italian level of innovation is so low that in certain sectors has disappeared, just think of electronics, the great sorrow of my mentor Prof. Degli Antoni ..
The impression is that we are afraid to innovate.
But why? Simple. For fear of making mistakes over the years have used models and technologies that had already given some results in economic terms. This
over the years, has atrophied the ability to truly innovate, because the technologies and experiences were often American, apparently favoring the simpler "Innovation Import" to the more difficult "Best of Innovation".
So one of the goals of the Media Lab China is to finally try to innovate, dare really, joining the efforts of various skills, to try to achieve, support companies and the Made in Italy, in an internal market in strong growth, such as China but from which you can then also act at the international level, possibly together with the Chinese themselves.
So do not expect that the innovations we are sold at a price "balance", thus continuing to fuel our continuing "laziness innovative."
Italy and Italians, we can play an important role in China and China in the world, only if we remember how the various Fermi, Volta, Meucci and Leonardo were working and .... wrong!
