Fear of the Unknown

A. In the small Umagic office in Midtown Manhattan, a team of 30 computer programmers is working on setting up websites that will allow subscribers to input details about themselves and their problems and receive advice from ‘virtual’ versions of personalities regarded as experts in their fields. For example, a well-known dietitian, a celebrity fitness trainer, and a psychologist well-known in the media for work on parent-child relationships. Umagic Systems is a young firm, and it’s hard to predict how far they’ll go. In ten years time, consulting a computer about your diet problems might seem natural, or it might seem absurd. But the company and others like it are beginning to seriously worry large American firms, who see such half-crazy, new, and innovative ideas as a threat to their own future success. B. Innovation has become a major concern of American management. Firms have found that it is increasingly difficult to redesign existing products or produce them more economically. The stars of American business today tend to be innovators such as Amazon (the internet bookstore) and Wal-Mart (the supermarket chain), which have produced completely new ideas or products that have changed their industries. C. Over the past 15 years, the firms that have achieved the greatest profits have been the ones that have had the most innovations. But such profits aren’t easy to come by. One of the reasons for the increasing number of mergers between companies is a desperate search for new ideas. A fortune is spent nowadays on identifying and protecting intellectual property: people’s…