Out of the Blue and into the Black: The Pursuit of Innovation and a visit to the DSM Biotechnology Center

250 Years Without Change

It’s been 250 years since we’ve changed the way we go about collaboration and innovation. Think about it. The secret to our way of thinking is contained in the titles we give ourselves. Manager, director, executive, president. We have spent hundreds of years perfecting a process by which we manage innovation, direct innovation, execute innovation, and preside over innovation.

We have never had a process as organic, irrepressible and successful as the machinery of Nature — which is chaotic, collaborative, symbiotic, competitive, directionless, formless, indescribable, inescapable, insuperable, unstoppable.

The supernova — the source of every atom more complex than hydrogen, helium, lithium and beryllium — thinks not, knows not, organizes not, executes not, directs not, manages not and presides not.

Yet, our industrial yields are bumping up on the limits of what you can manage, direct, prescribe, control and preside over. Big gains are available, we think, by other means.

And woe betide the company, these days, who falls Short of the Possible when it comes to the returns on capital. I could give you Break-Up, Shake-Up, Smash-Up and Mash-Up in about 20 languages spoken on Wall Street and everyone of them are used, more than you know and more than you’d like, when it comes to talking about biotechnology companies. That is, You.

Upon the subject of the process of innovation, investors think not, know not, organize not, direct not, manage not and preside not. But go supernova on you when earnings falter? Yep, they got an app for that.

So, here’s the shiny, hybrid-drive, direct injection, streamlined, “New Pathways to Innovation” Band Wagon. Jump on it, amigo.  The ultimate alternative is the unemployment line. The drive is on to reach the yields and costs that confer the kind of corporate returns that keep companies healthy, and job performance reviews breezy and informative. And everyone knows the old artisanal and control-based methods just aren’t going to cut it. Ask around.