I was reading a newsletter today from the Association for Competitive Technology. In it they stated:
During the Great Depression, Du Pont's research team invented Nylon and Douglas Aircraft developed the revolutionary DC-3. Hewlett Packard invented the pocket calculator during the recessions of the early seventies. During the economic slowdown of the late 1990s, Apple developed the iPod and iTunes and hundreds of successful, innovation-focused firms were created.
What I've learned as I prepare for my new book Bootstrap Business to be published this spring is that in difficult times, you still need to spend along the same percentages that you did in good times. What that means is that you should not shift all of your spending away from R&D, but just look across the board at spending cuts that still allow innovation to occur.
It sounds like Du Pont, Douglas Aircraft, HP and Apple knew about this secret as well.
What are you doing about innovation right now that will put your company "on the map" like the firms mentioned above? Double check the R&D budget line for 2009 and shift your focus to innovation. It is much more inspirational than "hunkering down".
Popular Posts
-
In reference to " Richard Anderson, Delta Air Lines (5Q Interview) " As a follow on to my earlier article last week about doing... -
I am now going to shift gears away from online technology and the role that they play in the travel distribution ecosystem to a topic that I... -
You fully understand that rung #1 of the ladder is spamming and you've gotten past rung #2, noise. You get it -- that in order to reall... -
UPDATED - March 12, 2014 Well, in the world of travel distribution on the OTA side of the equation, if Travelocity was the "come... -
Fail fast?
-
Part 2 of a 2 Part Series on Individual Relationship Management (IRM) versus Customer Relationship Management (CRM) which is flawed B... -
In the "The Future of the Social Web," report released by Forrester in April 2009, by Jeremiah Owyang, a Forrester senior analys... -
Lots of leaders will say thank you but have you ever worked for a leader that was great at acknow... -
I love this quote by Thomas Edison about opportunity. "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and loo... -
If you are familiar with the game of dominos, there are dots on each domino and the placement of a domino on each turn requires that you mat...
TripPlanz - Intelligent Trip Planning right from your website or blog
1 comment:
Good write-up. I read a detailed article that was printed in either Inc. or Fortune magazine, that outlined the successes made during the depression. Great article....I'll see if I can find that and repost. Many more examples.
Post a Comment