The ever interesting Andrew Zolli writes in BusinessWeek about the importance of the fringes for spotting innovations. I’m a great believer in the potential of innovation that happens outside the core. Indeed most interesting developments are increasingly happening as far away from the core as you could imagine. Think Shawn Fanning, Marc Andressen and the iPod (after all, it wasn’t Apples idea).
Great ideas also pop out of the fringes when sectors collide. Creating an environment to achieve this is damn tricky, and not well understood.
What niche fields will contribute to tomorrow’s great innovations? Ecology, gaming, and social networking, for starters
Although the article appears to have been trimmed down to make it digestable for people who still believe that wearing suits and ties leads to better decision making, it’s worth a read, if only to confirm that yes, interesting things can happen in online virtual worlds.
Shopping in Second Life anyone?