Quick and interesting insight from Fortune magazine over the weekend: Corning - the world's largest manufacturer of fiber optic cable - is on the verge of releasing a significant innovation. The company's scientists have discovered how to use nanotechnology to bend light around corners, which would overcome fiber optic cable's main issue - an inability to bend without losing data.
Fiber optic cable provides the largest "pipe" for transmitting data for the Internet and telephone calls. But its expansion has been limited by an inability to bend. This limit has been a challenge to Corning's growth, but its scientists finally seem to have cracked the code and used innovation to drive improvement for both shareholders and the world's consumers.
Corning CEO Wendell P. Weeks describes Corning's base business challenge which, in turn, helped drive the innovation:
"We're not always the fastest innovator, nor are we the cheapest. So we have to solve big problems that really matter - and this is one of them."
This challenge to win by making game-changing innovations has paid off in the past. Corning scientists have "invented everything from processes for making large LCD TV screens to lenses for the Hubble telescope and, now, highly bendable fiber."
I offer this example in particular for those who say that government must drive breakthroughs or that our stock market prevents investment in long-term R&D. All it takes is a business strategy and market opportunity. Corning is evidence that it can pay off for everyone.
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