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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday June 06 2017, @04:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the we'll-brainstorm-this dept.

Modern-day inventors—even those in the league of Steve Jobs—will have a tough time measuring up to the productivity of the Thomas Edisons of the past.
That's because big ideas are getting harder and harder to find, and innovations have become increasingly massive and costly endeavors, according to new research from economists at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. As a result, tremendous continual increases in research and development will be needed to sustain even today's low rate of economic growth.

Nicholas Bloom, a SIEPR senior fellow and co-author of the forthcoming paper, contends that so many game-changing inventions have appeared since World War II that it's become increasingly difficult to come up with the next big idea.

[...] Turning its focus to publicly traded companies, the study found a fraction of firms where research productivity—as measured by growth in sales, market capitalization, employment and revenue-per-worker productivity—grew decade-over-decade since 1980. But overall, more than 85 percent of the firms showed steady, rapid declines in productivity while their spending in R&D rose. The analysis found research productivity for firms fell, on average, about 10 percent per year, and it would take 15 times more researchers today than it did 30 years ago to produce the same rate of economic growth.

https://phys.org/news/2017-06-big-ideas-harder.html

[Source]: https://siepr.stanford.edu/news/productivity-ideas-hard-to-find
[Paper]: Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

Do you think that innovative ideas are hard to find ??


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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 06 2017, @08:10PM (3 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday June 06 2017, @08:10PM (#521543)

    The internet is even more "free" in the flow of information, music and video, but it's not a focusing influence the way an FM radio station used to be.

    Exactly; as I said before, the way the music industry works today is very different. Sure, there's tons of bands and musicians out there doing their own thing, mixing and making their own recordings using PCs or Macs, but it's not the same as when you had record companies' A&R people scouting talent and then developing them and bringing them to the radio. Wikipedia's A&R page [wikipedia.org] is pretty interesting here. Geffen's Gary Gersh signed Nirvana even though alternative wasn't considered commercial, and had to convince others to push the record; imagine how the 90s would be different if he hadn't done all that (for better or worse). John H. Hammond signed Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Bruce Springsteen; imagine how different music would be now if that hadn't happened. But now this has changed: "The general move towards more conservative and business-minded signings from the 1980s onwards is seen to be symptomatic of an industry where the most powerful figures are no longer music fans or people with musical backgrounds, but business people. Traditionally A&R executives were composers, arrangers and producers ... but an A&R with musical ability and knowledge has become a rarity." So as I said before, the music business is entirely different now. This just isn't a case of "you only remember the good stuff and forget about the crap"; things really are different now. At the very least, if you do really believe that great, innovative new music is still being made somewhere, because of how different the music business is, it's pretty hard to find it. It's a lot easier hearing something new that you like when it's on the radio in a time when everyone listens to the radio and the music is promoted commercially, rather than now when you have to go looking for it because it's made in someone's basement and there's no promotion at all. And this still ignores the issues of professional vs. amateur production: there's a lot more to recording music and making it sound good than just setting up some microphones and hitting "record" on some software program.

    Oh, and as for "Glam Metal" - I wouldn't say that nobody is making that anymore, just that they're not making big money from the mainstream distribution channels on it anymore, same for Big Band, Baroque, etc. - the "long tail" served by Amazon and similar retailers keeps these genres available for purchase, and I'm sure there's a venue or two in the world having a "Glam Metal" revival concert this weekend, literally dozens of people will be attending.

    Citation needed. I seriously doubt *anyone* is actually making any new glam metal any more. Sure, you'll see old bands/musicians from past eras play concerts of their old stuff, or you might see cover bands playing someone's old stuff, but that doesn't count, just like doing "Hamlet" at your local community theater doesn't count as "making Middle English plays". No one's actually making new stuff, with fans actually buying and listening to it.

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 06 2017, @08:32PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday June 06 2017, @08:32PM (#521555)

    I don't have "the goods" on Glam Metal, but the Journey story (Arnel Pineda replacing Steve Perry) is a pretty strong example of cultural icons echoing around the globe - before he was discovered Arnel didn't just sing Journey songs, he was a huge fan and did great homage, but it's not a stretch at all to think that somewhere there's a group that does a little more than just cover songs. I forget the name, but I saw an AC/DC cover band once - they hit all the covers, but did a couple of their own things in the genre too.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday June 06 2017, @11:25PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday June 06 2017, @11:25PM (#521649) Journal

    symptomatic of an industry where the most powerful figures are no longer music fans or people with musical backgrounds, but business people.

    That's common theme in many industries. Corporations run by MBAs, generalists, economists etc.. all with a lack of touch what they are really doing. They are essentially running cognitively blind since they won't realize big mistakes or good opportunities.

  • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday June 07 2017, @07:18PM

    by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday June 07 2017, @07:18PM (#522148) Journal

    Citation needed. I seriously doubt *anyone* is actually making any new glam metal any more. Sure, you'll see old bands/musicians from past eras play concerts of their old stuff, or you might see cover bands playing someone's old stuff, but that doesn't count, just like doing "Hamlet" at your local community theater doesn't count as "making Middle English plays". No one's actually making new stuff, with fans actually buying and listening to it.

    Dude, half a second on Google would have gotten you an entire Wikipedia page listing glam metal bands, many of which are still active and producing albums:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_glam_metal_bands_and_artists [wikipedia.org]

    But "Glam metal" also isn't a distinct sub-genre the way "doom metal" or "black metal" is. There's a half dozen interchangeable terms, most of which refer more to the appearance of the artists than the actual style of music. People are still producing that style of music, they just call it hard rock or heavy metal or something instead of glam metal. The word "glam" is what died, nothing more than that.

    And FYI, people do still make Middle English plays too:
    https://www.amazon.com/Two-Gentlemen-Lebowski-Excellent-Tragical/dp/1451605811 [amazon.com]
    https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-off-broadway/two-gentlemen-of-lebowski/ [backstage.com]