The innovator’s ecosystem

A tweet I saw recently showcases the mindset of the innovators that will lead this charge for change: “Cynics never do the impossible, achieve the improbable, take on the inadvisable. Hope is only path to extraordinary success.” Tweeting is an innovation few could have seen or defined: who would have thought a few years ago that millions of people would follow messages in 140 characters? And who would have thought that they could tell the mood of the nation? Or reveal the culture of a city, avoid traffic, sense the stirrings of a revolution, predict the financial markets, detect and map natural disasters, predict the popularity of people, technologies and goods….I could go on forever! For the longest time, I have thought of innovation and its partner, entrepreneurship, as about “those who dare to dream the dreams and are foolish enough to try and make these dreams come true.” And foolishness is a key ingredient of both innovation and entrepreneurship. Martin Luther King said “human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted” and George Bernard Shaw echoed “all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.” It is this kind of creativity, innovation, and risk-taking that represents the fundamental driver behind economic, cultural, and social progress. There is absolutely no mistake as to why the United States led the world for the second half of the 20th century, and why it is also home to the most entrepreneurs, new business, and revolutionary technologies per capita…