Fostering the development of leading edge innovations is
becoming harder than ever. Paradigms such as Moore’s Law, the law
that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles
every two years, have become increasingly harder to achieve.
Even the greatest tech giants such as Intel and IBM have found that there resources are tapped, and
that r&d efforts are becoming increasingly difficult to carry
out alone. This presented a problem for corporations engaged in
tech innovation, since collaboration involves sharing knowledge and
even valuable trade secrets. Companies such as IBM took the plunge however, joining with other
companies and universities in an effort to enhance their r&d
capabilities. Did companies such as IBM
lose their competitive advantage through collaboration? In fact
what they found was that it was greatly increased. (IBM now turns
out more patents a day than any other corporation on the
planet.)
Collaboration centers, syndicates that bring together a wide
variety of public and private institutions under one roof, have
become the platforms for the type of innovation described above.
Often located in and around universities, these centers are growing
at an astounding rate, and attracting billions of dollars in
investment.
(cont.)
Understanding these collaboration centers and what it takes to
germinate these dynamic engines of our future economy is the key to
success for players in the 21st century. Here is a prediction of
their importance and impact.
- Collaboration centers will become critical cogs in the progress
of globalisation in the 21st century, fostering international
cooperation on the most difficult questions of our time and
encouraging peace, prosperity, and stability in our dynamic
changing world.
- Collaboration centers will have an impact on all levels,
judging their success on their ability to support and augment firms
of all sizes, as even the smallest technology firms can make
enormous contributions.
- Collaboration centers will become even more critical to
national economic agendas, with insular behavior and protectionism
becoming much weaker influences on the global stage as there
success becomes proven.
- Regions at all levels will understand the power of
globalization and collaboration, and in turn globalization will
spread from large global cities to smaller cities and towns. Thus
smaller cities and regions will look at how they can make
themselves more accessible to people from other parts of the world,
investing in transportation and infrastructure and becoming more
culturally astute.
- Collaboration centers will draw like gravity critical social
programs such as education, infusing a level of money, innovative
spirit, and partnership into these activities, and in turn
improving educaitonal relevance. They will become regional
headquarters for future related topics even outside their specific
focus. This allows them to grow and influence all levels of
regional society.
What might this mean for the development of massive
collaboration platforms in the future?
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