Don´t laugh at Chinese innovations, it´s the new mindset that will change the world

China is trying hard to make the country innovative an rich. At the moment the government is encouraging people to apply for patents, and there is a new openess towards laws protecting ownership. "Anxious to promote domestic innovation, the Chinese government has created an ecosystem of incentives for its people to file patents", writes The Economist. 

Thomson Reuters predicts that China will become the world’s largest publisher of patents next year, and even if a lot of experts are sceptical, this is a beginning. Sure, the government may be nurturing useless ideas by giving incentives, and perhaps it´s all a bubble, but I still believe this is a way to change the mentality of a nation. Sure, the ideas might not be tip-top but ideas feed on ideas, so there is more to come.

If the old World gets snobbish and ty to reduce the importance of a Chinese curiousity in innovation, we will fail. I believe the Australians for example have become lazy and perhaps a bit frightened. Economy is ok, so coming up with new ideas can be risky. Hence... we stay where we are.

China does not.

Maybe Chinese incentives leads to too many patents, but when clapping your hands for every little idea, you send signals to people that ideas are welcome and they will keep on being creative. Maybe the first few attempts are rubbish, but after a while they will get the hang of it. It´s a mindset that will turn China into a bubbly society.

In Australia just 4 in 10 businesses undertook innovative activity in new goods and services, marketing or internal operations, in 2008-09, which is a fall from 45 % in 2007-08.

Who is heading up? Who is heading down under? Worrying, worrying.