Idea 24 - Innovation Innovation is back on the corporate to-do list. When the innovative frenzy of the dot.com years came to its abrupt end, big companies stepped back from the new and refocused on the familiar. Now they are cautiously re-emerging from the bunkers. The IT industry shrieks 'innovation' and depends on it for much of its continued livelihood, but new and public commitments to innovate by large firms like General Electric and Procter & Gamble have encouraged other industries back into the lab. Innovation comes in waves, nourished by advances in technology. That was true in 1450, when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. The advent of the personal computer set off a similar wave in the 1970s, ushering in the information age. In the 1980s it was software and, in the 1990s, the Internet and all things digital. The digital revolution continues, but today's urge to innovate also looks inward as firms turn to their own competencies in searc...