What particularly irked me was the notion that ideas should be treated like automobile parts, without any understanding of where they come from or how they evolve. Ironically, this particular case of seemingly unpatriotic behavior related to the field of consumer electronics, where hardware had long been abandoned by American industry. Zenith, one of the most vocal critics at the time, doesn't even build TV sets in the United States, while Sony manufactures products in San Diego and Pittsburgh that are sold domestically as well as exported throughout the world. I thought hard about this logic. But now, that was bad too, maybe worse, because Japan would run away with our creative skills, getting the goose and the golden eggs.
New ideas come from differences.
They come from having different perspectives and juxtaposing different theories. Incrementalism is innovation's worst enemy. New concepts and big steps forward, in a very real sense, come from left field, from a mixture of people, ideas, backgrounds, and cultures that normally are not mixed. For this reason, the global landscape is the most fertile ground for new ideas. Global cottage research During the recent past, a prerequisite for being global was being big.