ReferencesBrown, D. (2006, Spring). Drawing. Harvard Business

Review OnPoint: Executive Edition, 61.Danigelis, A., & Pollock, J. (2006, March). The irresistible

force. Fast Company, 103, 111.Drucker, P. F. (2006, Spring). The discipline of innovation.

Harvard Business Review OnPoint: Executive Edition, 33-38.

Wolpert, J. D. (2006, Spring). Breaking out of the innovation box. Harvard Business Review OnPoint: Executive Edition, 54-61.

Zolli, A. (2006, March). Demographics: The population hourglass. Fast Company, 103, 56-62.

(Brown, 2006, p. 61)

Breaking Out of the Breaking Out of the Innovation BoxInnovation Box

• If a company stays locked inside its own four walls, how will it be able to uncover and exploit opportunities outside of its existing business or beyond its current technical or operational capabilities?

(Wolpert, 2006, p. 56)(Wolpert, 2006, p. 56)

• No company is smart enough to know what to do with every new opportunity it finds, and no company has enough resources to pursue all the opportunities it might execute.

(Wolpert, 2006, p. 58)

Demographic Changes• Of the outside sources of innovation opportunities,

demographics are the most reliable. • The Japanese are ahead in robotics because they paid

attention to demographics. Everyone in the developed countries around 1970 or so knew that there was both a baby bust and an education explosion going on; about half or more of the young people were staying in school beyond high school. Consequently, the number of people available for traditional blue-collar work in manufacturing was bound to decrease and become inadequate by 1990. Everyone knew this, but only the Japanese acted on it, and they now have a ten-year lead in robotics.

(Drucker, 2006, pp. 36-37)

Note: This phenomenon is very evident in Europe--more than the United States.

(Danigelis & Pollock, 2006, p. 111)

Demographics and Women• It will not be just the age and color of the workforce that

change in the years ahead—its gender will change, too. Though it has been widely underreported, women make up approximately 58% of the undergraduate college population, and that figure is rising. Within 10 years, at least 3 million more women than men could be attending college, and because educational and economic and because educational and economic achievement are so strongly correlatedachievement are so strongly correlated, those gains will inevitably translate into cultural influence, purchasing power, and corporate leadershipcorporate leadership. That trend will only accelerate through the 2010s.

(Zolli, 2006, p. 62)

• Women’s economic achievement is already seeding the clouds for a deluge of distaff marketing and product development. According to the National Association of Realtors, the percentage of single female home buyers in the past 20 years has nearly doubled, placing them second only to married couples. And the number of women buying high-end consumer electronics like plasma televisions is growing faster than the number of men (a reality yet to sink in a the big-box stores).

(Zolli, 2006, p. 62)