Invention, Innovation and Opportunity

Industrial Invention 1793 - 1860
When Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and Cyrus McCormick the mechanical reaper, it signaled the beginning of a change for the global economy, markets and society. During this era, technology and innovation delivered vastly more efficient ways to harvest natural resources and moved the scale and size of industry to an entirely new level. New markets were born out of this change and the net effect on the global ecosystem was one that can be seen as having resulted in significant benefits.

Technology and Innovation 1993 - 20xx
In the current landscape Jobs and Wozniak might be names one would use to find such comparisons to where technology and invention have had such a global impact. Not mincing words, these innovations are the cause / effect of where our free markets are today. When innovation brings on efficiencies such as those seen in our modern age, its resulting global adoption brings with it massive change. Today's technology has changed the way we do nearly everything. These digital innovations now manage every facet of our lives wherein just 50 years ago much of what we did was analog and manual. Along the way, our global landscape has changed. China has become the number one manufacturer in the world ending 100+ years of this being the United States. The biggest company in the world this year (for the first time ever) was the US technology company (APPLE -AAPL). Among all this is the opportunity for prosperity and further innovation. Technology has spawned new markets and will continue to spawn new markets. Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc are prime examples of how new markets have been created from technology and innovation.

Final Diatribe
As with the cotton gin and mechanical reaper the invention is only a signal of the change to come. Studies show that when change occurs, one third will be early adopters, one third will be disillusioned participants, and one third will resist. With this comes opportunity. As often is the case, our history can be a guide to the future. The metaphors of the industrial era are certainly playing themselves out as they did in the past. One constant throughout it all is the theme of improvement through innovation and as opposed to it's alternative, its a much better place to be.