The rate of innovation is increasing, and have been increasing for a very long time. The rate of innovation even seems to be unaffected by wars! Below I list three big reasons for this.
New combinations
A lot of our innovations consists of new combinations of existing innovations. So when the number of innovations increases the possible new combinations of innovations increases dramatically. Unexpected combinations, such as the combination of inventions from different fields, often have the most disruptive effects.
New problems
Although we are successful in creating new innovations, they are rarely perfect. They provide some advantages (or else we dispose of them), but also disadvantages. Ultimately these disadvantages are problems that need new solutions, that is new innovations. One obvious example of this is the pollution that comes comes along with the use of combustion engines. This has lead to a lot of new innovations, e.g. catalytic converters and fuel-cells.
Human nature
We tend to increase our expectations over time. The Japanese professor Noriaki Kano have developed a very successful customer satisfaction model that shows how something that once exited us, becomes something we expect more of. Eventually we even feel utterly dissatisfied if we do not get that something that once excited us. A simple way to handle this human urge is to continue innovating stuff.
Learn more @ Meaningful innovation (GoogleTechTalk), Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence & care2.
Image by x-ray delta one
Herbjörn Wilhelmsen
Lorena Planagan
2011/09/08 at 01:35
Interesting views regarding that!