Verdens 50 mest innovative bedrifter

Bladet Fast Company kårer hvert år de 50 mest innovative bedriftene i verden og presenterer i siste nummer den nye listen for 2014. Google topper listen foran Bloomberg Philantropies, Xiaomi (kinesisk produsent av smarttelefoner), Dropbox og Netflix. Det er også artikler som går litt dypere inn i noen av selskapene på listen, blant annet synes jeg artikkelen "How Philips altered the future of light" om Philips arbeid med å utvikle nye typer LED-belysning der spennende.

I forbindelse med kåringen av de 50 mest innovative har redaktør Robert Safian også en kommentar om 12 viktige trender som han kaller "Twelve innovation lessons for 2014" Der skriver han om temaer som "Passion is underrated", "Software beats hardware" og "Made in China is a compliment". Og så har jeg særlig sans for det siste punktet på listen hans: "Dreaming big isn't folly; It's required". Om dette siste temaet skriver Safian at:

"Philips scientists calculated that LED lighting could cut total worldwide electricity use by 10%--saving some $250 billion. It's the reason they've put decades into developing it. Pharma researcher Medivation believed it could attack cancer in a new way, and it got a breakthrough drug on the market three years faster than the norm. GE estimates that sensor-packed plane engines could save the airline industry $30 billion over 15 years--and that broader applications of data-driven efficiencies could increase national incomes by nearly a third. Is Tesla's vision of a national network of electric cars pie-in-the-sky? Maybe. But without the dreams, we'll never find our way to what is truly possible. As Jon Gertner observes in his Philips article, "The initial appeal of an innovation doesn't predict the problems it may one day solve.""