Author Topic: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?  (Read 4412 times)

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famousdayandyear

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The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« on: February 06, 2013, 02:37:29 am »
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-top-10-innovations-of-all-time.html

 The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?

   
Innovation Excellence's Braden Kelley ranks his top 10 innovations of all time and I don't disagree with either his rankings or the rationale behind them.

    Accelerating Innovation Requires Accelerating Knowledge and Insight

    ...It is my contention that the pace of innovation accelerates when the speed of knowledge sharing accelerates, that knowledge acceleration leads to innovation acceleration. As we have developed more efficient ways of accelerating the pace of knowledge sharing, our pace of innovation has sped up.

    It is shocking to think that if you go back only two hundred years as a species we had no idea how disease was transmitted, couldn’t send a message from one side of an ocean to another without using a ship, and that most human beings on this planet would not travel farther than 50 miles from the place of their birth during their lifetime.

    Now we can travel to outer space, levitate objects using sound or magnetism, create life, destroy whole cities in an instant, build things smaller than the width of a human hair, and do some other things that even twenty years ago would have seemed impossible...

    ...We are inventing and innovating today at an astonishing rate, and for companies or nations that want to outpace their competition, they should be laser-focused on accelerating the pace of knowledge sharing if they are intent on being faster and more efficient than their competition at innovation... It is because of these important linkages that I believe the below ten items are the Top 10 Innovations of All Time:

        Paper (105AD – Europe 10th century – Germany 1400)
        Printing Press (1450)
        Telegraph (1837)
        Telephone (1876)
        Modern Public Library (1850-1945 depending on country)
        Commercial Radio (1920)
        Commercial Television (1936 UK, 1948 US)
        World Wide Web (1991)
        Wikipedia (2001)
        YouTube (2005)


Kelley includes some cautionary notes about over-reliance on technology. But the theme is clear.

"Information diffusion" -- transforming the methods by which ideas are disseminated and thereby accelerating human collaboration -- is the meta-innovation that facilitates nearly all other useful inventions.

Oceander

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2013, 04:03:29 am »
Toilet paper and flush toilets.

famousdayandyear

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2013, 04:14:56 am »
Toilet paper and flush toilets.

No fair, Ocean; you didn't give a date

Offline 240B

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2013, 04:30:20 am »
Banana Split with hot fudge topping
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Offline EC

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2013, 06:35:45 am »
All interesting choices, but missing some of the biggies:

Piped water - Roman, then lost for centuries
Effective sanitation - various times
Wide Spread Literacy -  began 16th Century
Acceptance of Pasteur's Germ Theory - 19th Century
Public Access to widespread transportation - 19th Century
The Refrigerator/Freezer - early 20th Century

6 huge innovations that made modern society.
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Offline Cincinnatus

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #5 on: February 06, 2013, 06:42:36 am »
I was kinda thinking the development of the wheel and the successful harnessing of fire.
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Offline EC

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #6 on: February 06, 2013, 07:07:59 am »
I was kinda thinking the development of the wheel and the successful harnessing of fire.

Good ones!

Sometimes wonder who the first person was who looked at a lump of iron ore and thought, what will happen if this gets really hot?

One very odd fact I learned a long time ago - every culture has at some stage invented the loom. Only one invented knitting. If you are a nomad do you want to haul a loom around or a pair of small sticks and some wool?
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Offline Cincinnatus

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #7 on: February 06, 2013, 07:13:49 am »
I also thought maybe the Bessemer Process.
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Offline PzLdr

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #8 on: February 06, 2013, 03:04:29 pm »
Gunpowder
Steel
waterproof concrete
penicillin
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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #9 on: February 06, 2013, 03:14:04 pm »
Banana Split with hot fudge topping
Coconut Cream Pie
Nutella!  (Yesterday was World Nutella Day).
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Offline massadvj

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #10 on: February 06, 2013, 03:23:15 pm »

The Wonderbra.

Online mountaineer

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #11 on: February 06, 2013, 03:27:12 pm »
Indoor plumbing and electricity would top my list (apart from Nutella).
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famousdayandyear

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #12 on: February 06, 2013, 08:26:22 pm »
Night Baseball

Oceander

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #13 on: February 09, 2013, 12:25:32 am »
The Wonderbra.


You're so predictable!  :silly:

famousdayandyear

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #14 on: February 09, 2013, 04:58:46 am »
Nobody listed "sliced bread"; am surprised at the omission

Offline massadvj

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #15 on: February 09, 2013, 01:07:53 pm »
You're so predictable!  :silly:

Well, maybe.  But you have to admit.  It's a hell of an invention.


Offline Lipstick on a Hillary

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #16 on: February 09, 2013, 01:40:52 pm »
The railroad.  It connected the eastern US with the west.

famousdayandyear

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #17 on: February 09, 2013, 04:12:53 pm »


The Navy SEAL

Oceander

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Re: The Top 10 Innovations of All Time?
« Reply #18 on: February 10, 2013, 05:11:07 am »
Well, maybe.  But you have to admit.  It's a hell of an invention.



I'm certainly not disagreeing with you!