IPI has long been a relentless defender of innovation. We see it as being so vital that we made it a part of our name: The Institute for Policy Innovation. The fact is the importance of innovation in economic development and human progress, especially in the tech sector, cannot be overstated.
So what are we to make of an idea put forth by Randall Rothenberg? In an article headlined “The Power of Dumb Ideas” in the journal Strategy + Business E-News, Rothenberg argues that imitation is better than innovation. He bases his claim on a study done by consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, sponsor of the journal, and concludes it is more effective and profitable to imitate than to create.
“A study of 1,300 publicly traded U.S. companies in fifty-five industries,” Rothenberg wrote, “… found that only four broad ideas, copied over and over again in one sector after another, accounted for 80 percent of the breakout businesses created between 1965 and 1995.”
No doubt there is profit in copying others’ creativity. Good ideas are often incrementally improved into great ideas. This is especially true in marketing, which is where Rothenberg focuses to make his point.
We even see a lot of it in the policy world, where we operate.
And there is a long-discussed notion in literary theory that there are no new plots, that today’s plotlines are merely variations of previous literary works.
But the fact is that without innovation, there is nothing to copy and expand upon. No miracle drugs, no microscopic machines, no great literature, nothing as simple as Post-it Notes nor as complex as a modern airliner.
It is surely less expensive, faster and easier to copy. And perfectly legal if the copy-cat isn’t infringing a patent, copyright, trademark or trade secret. That may explain why so much of it goes on.
But while we recognize copying’s importance to the society, we can’t help favoring innovation. After all, who would care about an organization called the Institute for Copying Others’ Innovations?