Editor's Blog: The meaning of innovation

One of our reporters recently caught up with the head of innovation for Microsoft UK. A Q&A of her conversation with him is here. But hold your sighs - this is interesting stuff.

Before you start using words like oxymoron, consider some of the points he makes. Now I personally have some issue with a view that the UK must look to the US for leadership on innovation.

As a country, for hundreds of years, we've been more innovative than most. In all sorts of areas, we've truly pushed boundaries - and this goes beyond what we traditionally think of as invention, from wartime breakthroughs to vacuum cleaners from Dyson. (Definitely not the time to write the word Hoover.)

But we've usually been pretty terrible at exploiting that innovation. No doubt the US can teach us lots there. But my simple point is that we should actually look to all the rest of the world for inspiration on innovation, not just the US or Silicon Valley, just as the rest of the world follows us.

Two other points made by Jim Lawn, for that is his name, were very good. For one, he talks about the twin issues of the rise of offshoring and the fall in computer science students/grads. These aren't separate matters, he says. And I tend to agree.

But are our teenagers just being clever? We often receive Reader Comments from middle-aged IT pros promising they will never encourage their son or daughter to pursue a career in tech. It comes across as sad. But is it just sensible advice? This may on the surface sound blasphemous but you don't have to work in tech to have a happy life.

Aside from all the politics about offshoring or workers brought in on migrant visas, surely the real lesson is this: if you are going to go into tech or any other career made more competitive by globalisation, do so with your eyes open and with a constant desire to be the best. And I know that sounds harsh.

Maybe that's all that's happening in today's sixth forms. Our kids are more realistic than the generation or two before them.

And let's not confuse that with there being no role in the UK for those interested in technology. We just need to be the best at things, as we are in certain areas of industry, academia, entertainment or sport.

The other point that struck me as honest was Lawn's assessment of Microsoft's role. Just as many readers of this piece will have started off with a sneer at the mention of 'Microsoft' and 'innovation' in the same sentence they should see that the company, despite impressive labs in places such as Cambridge - part of what Lawn calls Silicon County - isn't claiming to be the answer to our innovation needs.

He ended with: "The key point is about helping others innovate on our platform as opposed to driving our own innovation and I think there are real reasons why we can be optimistic about innovation in the UK."

The biggest of several big angles here isn't about the actual mining of ideas - it's about the tools used to do all that work. And Microsoft rightly realises that's where its bread is buttered.