Competition is the natural order of the
world. Plants compete for sunlight and water. Animals compete for food.
Primitive tribes of people compete with neighboring tribes for resources, and
modern people living in technological societies compete in business, science,
art, and other areas. Competition serves as a catalyst for innovation and
continuous improvement.
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If people didn’t compete, we would still
be using Stone Age tools. Likewise, when we see an area where competition is
lacking, we usually see an equivalent type of stagnation.
The Soviet Union was a case in point.
The old communists did a great job of innovating in defense and espionage,
because they were constantly striving to outperform NATO. On the other hand,
they foundered in nearly every other area, because their
state-owned-enterprises lacked competition.
Similarly, innovations like the personal
computer did not come from the established leaders, such as IBM or DEC. These
companies enjoyed a lack of competition because they held virtual monopolies in
their respective industry segments.
This seeming advantage held hidden
dangers. It led them to define computing in a narrow fashion. Clayton
Christensen explained this tendency for industry leaders to overlook disruptive
innovations in his landmark book, The Innovator’s Dilemma.1
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That’s why a new class of innovation
competitions has been so effective. Contests such as the X Prize provide the
catalysts participants need to leap across the usual barriers and trigger
disruptive change. Part of that success comes from encouraging universities,
as well as other non-traditional competitors with extraordinary resources and
low “cost structures,” to participate.
According to LinuxInsider,2 Dr. Peter Diamandis conceived the X
Prize Foundation after reading The Spirit of St. Louis, a book about
Charles Lindbergh, who won a prize of $25,000 for being the first person to fly
solo across the Atlantic. The letter X stands for the unknown, but it
also is the Roman numeral for 10, as in $10 million in...
