I work in green innovation. My job is to take the complexities
of sustainability, find glimmers of innovative brilliance, then
nurture those glimmers until they’re fully formed and ready to
change the world.

With that bias, I listened keenly to President Obama’s State Of
The Union speech. Would there be any ideas that could inspire
revolutionary innovation? Any diamonds that America’s green
entrepreneurs could polish and turn into world-changers?

I believe there were.

The President hammered home the idea that We Do Big Things. We
rally together in times of adversity. We take on impossible
challenges. Innovation doesn’t change our lives–it’s what we do
for a living.

I was inspired. And great innovation can’t come without
inspiration.

However, it takes more than just inspiration to create
world-changers. It takes a nation that truly wants to be the
best–and is willing to sacrifice and build together. Do we have
what it takes?

No Party Of No

First, innovation takes encouragement. Every newborn idea is
vulnerable, messy and unformed. The ideas need to be cared for
until they can stand on their own feet and assert themselves.

As long as the US political atmosphere is fractured by parties
of no, new idea will die stillborn.

I’m not taking pot shots at Republicans, or even the Tea Party.
I’m taking aim at a system that emphasizes dogma over thought.
There is no monopoly on common sense or brilliant thinking. But
those two virtues have been drowned out in a cacophony of attack
politics and WWE-style diatribes.

We Are Not The World

My company has developed a highly prized asset we call the href=”http://community.maddockdouglas.com/blog/entry/14695/Get-Out-of-the-Jar-by-Using-Outside-Experts/?highlight=gen”
target=”_blank”>Global Experts Network.

In essence, we invite the best brains we can find around the
world to help us crack problems. No ego, no silos, no turf
war–just a common desire to push ideas to their potential.

Obama made a number of references to America’s insularity in his
speech. For example, he bemoaned the fact we’re educating foreign
students here, then forcing them to return home. Meanwhile, a
quarter of our students aren’t even finishing high school, and
America has fallen to 9th in the proportion of young people with a
college degree.

Sending smart people away while strangling the brains of our own
children are fast tracks to turning off the global tap of ideas.
Ergo no global expert network here at home.

Killing Ideas With Righteous Might

Obama touched on the poison of influence lobbying. He asked for
support in cutting off subsidies to big oil that should go to
renewable energy innovation. He railed against lawyers and
accountants who help companies and individuals dodge their due
taxes.

These well-known paragons of unfair practices do more than
damage the American ideal of fair play and meritocracy. They also
kill innovation.

In one of our href=”http://community.maddockdouglas.com/article/16307/Killing-Ideas-With-Righteous-Might/?highlight=righteous+might”
target=”_blank”>thought leadership pieces, we start by saying
“Without even knowing it, you might be one of the passionate
bull-headed big mouths who keeps the big ideas from happening.”

To create world-changing innovation, you need support from all
levels–there can’t be powerful lobbyists waiting in the dark for
you with a baseball bat.

Can we dislodge these vested interests and make our system more
fair? Sure. Can we do it quickly enough to catch up to our BRIC
competitors? Not so sure.

What Are You Waiting For?

I hold out little hope for moribund government in the pursuit of
global innovation. In fact, I believe government regulation in
green innovation will only serve to provide insanely broad
guidelines to steer by.

In truth, I am far more inspired by the likes of Wal-Mart,
Dupont and Unilever. Global companies that are not only inventing
green at a furious pace, but legislating their suppliers and
clients to do the same with a power no government could match.

So here’s the ask: what is your company doing?

Are you waiting for our government to tell you how to innovate
for the future? If you answer yes, there’s little hope for you in
the revolutionary global innovation market Obama described.

If, however, you’re charging full speed ahead, href=”http://community.maddockdouglas.com/blog/entry/15974/Failure-Glorious-Failure/?highlight=failure%2C+glorious+failure”
target=”_blank”>failing forward and pushing to out-innovate,
give me a call. We should plan on doing big things together.

This article first appeared in href=”http://www.fastcompany.com/1720859/we-do-big-things-really”
target=”_blank”>Fast & Company and is reprinted here with
the kind permission of the author.