Innovation is the lifeblood of 21st-century business. Companies – and even whole industries – are prioritizing it and creating new tools, processes, and systems at a faster rate than ever before. As a result, every big business is trying it out. And there’s no bigger business than politics.
Innovation is a bipartisan issue
Politicians from both sides are innovation-friendly, it seems. In recent speeches, the issue just keeps creeping up.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a poster boy for the Republican Party, spent some time overseas in February. While promoting the issue of free trade, he also bragged on the quality of Wisconsin’s Colby cheese. “We believe we make [cheese] better than anyone else in the world,” Walker said, “but we don’t begrudge anyone else trying to make a better cheese.”
He continued, “Truly free trade rewards hard work and innovation.” And cheese, probably.
From the other side of the aisle, Hilary Clinton has long been an advocate for innovation. During her tenure as Secretary of State, she implemented an “innovation agenda” and created an innovation award for women and girls. She even appointed an innovation adviser 2009.
These two aren’t the only ones, either. “Innovation” has taken up residence in the American political lexicon.
A word like “progress”
Innovation is a perfect word for politicians. It’s smoky and sexy. Even better, it’s elastic.
Robert Schlesinger, an editor at U.S. News & World Report, puts it succinctly, saying, “It’s a very pliable word, so it can be used to indicate a great many things or nothing at all.” Innovation joins a long list of great political words like progress, duty, political, and safety. Their real definitions don’t matter anymore. The feelings attached to them do.
And truthfully, the word feels appropriate in any discussion of our future. We’re building electric cars. We’re preparing to colonize Mars. The public’s temperament with regards to innovation is excitedly anxious. Politicians who don’t have something to say about it are like politicians without a stance on climate change or terrorism. They’re out of the game.
Definitions matter
But what do innovative politics even look like? Is it a restructuring of the government? Is it the reallocation of funds into different programs? Will the discussions about these changes be made public? Outside of the military and NASA, innovation is more of a private sphere enterprise, and governments have a certain measure of tradition involved. If our leaders are going to tout innovation, we should at least insist on knowing what they mean.
Status quo cool
Until relatively recently, when JFK declared that “the times demand new invention, innovation, imagination, decision,” innovation was scoffed at by politicians. At different times, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt all distanced themselves from the notion.
Nowadays, a preference towards the new and creative is nothing new or creative. It’s status quo cool, the bare minimum at best. Do our politicians have what it takes to be effectively innovative? In a business that often rewards towing the line, do they even have the courage to try?