The Coming Tech-led Boom

Wonderful Article today in the Wall Street Journal:  The Coming Tech-led Boom.  By Mark L. Mills and Julio M. Ottino.  Try to find it and read the entire article.  Here are my take-away highlights:

Since 1912 we have had 100 years of phenomenal growth as a nation.  And Americans are 700% wealthier in real terms.  This in spite of 19 years of "recession" economics.

What caused this?  It was 5 emerging technologies that hardly anyone realized would blossom into drivers of the economy.  What were they?

1. Electrification
2. Telephony
3. Dawn of the Automobile Age
4. Invention of Stainless Steel
5. Radio Amplification

Now, in 2012, we sit on 4 new emerging technologies that will transform things forever and favor the US over other nations (but the effects are hard to visualize today -- just as they were in 1912)  :

1. Big Data
2. Smart Manufacturing
3. Wireless Revolution

All of these are most favorably fostered in the USA.  We also have the world’s best education system in terms of diversity of thinking, and by 2010 we will have a younger population than China and aging Europe and Japan.

What are these ? 

Big Data with the Cloud and other things will allow astronomical feats of analysis, lead to medical revolutions, and other things unimaginable at the moment. 

Smart Manufacturing is nearing the point where we can produce 3-D parts and even whole washing machines just as we print 2-D documents today with a copy machine. New products are appearing using new materials, created by technology.  Materials that didn’t even exist a few years ago.  Some of which are even invisible.   This kind of smart manufacturing will be defined by HIGH TALENT,  not  CHEAP LABOR.  The US is poised to provide that.

Wireless Communication is such a revolution, soon most humans on the planet will be connected wirelessly.  And cheaply.  Sharing ideas, socializing, trading goods and services in real time. The germs of this revolution lie in the USA.  Arab Spring is a visible part of what this can do politically and this future is just opening up.

Another important point, our culture favors this kind of innovation – and changing culture is very difficult and takes years.  Other countries might try,  but it will take years and years if they accomplish it at all.  We have a head start.