Snap Out Of It!

Last month the Innovation Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF)released its report showing the rankings of 40 countries regarding their capacity for innovation. In that report, the U.S. is shown as ranked #6 out of 40.

Ahead of the United States are: Singapore, Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark and South Korea. All fair company I suppose.

But perhaps more disturbing are the little tidbits a bit further into the report. For example, when measuring the rate of change in innovation over the past decade, the U.S.A comes in dead last. 40th place. In other words, every other country (countries like China, Poland, Latvia, Malta and even Cyprus for heaven's sake) innovate at a faster clip than we do hear at the good ol' USA.

It seems that we've been telling ourselves that 'we're #1' for so long that we've come to believe that success will simply come naturally to us. Over the last 10 year's we patted each other on the back as we admired our cunning brilliance. "We think, they sweat." we said.

And all the while, our competitors are gaining on us while the politicians keep telling us that "we have the most dynamic economy in the world" and that "Americans work harder than any other people on the planet."

Do we really?