This week we are talking about innovation as we read Steven Johnson’s book, Where Good Ideas Come From. While innovation is almost worshipped in American culture, I would like to talk about a counter example of something staying the same. The New York Times recently ran a story about the basic Casio digital watch, which costs anywhere from $11 to $35 dollars and will last upwards of seven years. Moreover the basic model has been essentially unchanged for 25 years! By contrast Apple has corporate time constant where it introduces a new model of Iphone every year, usually with some carrots or sticks that will make us want to buy a new phone. (One stick is that ios 13 won’t run on Iphone 6.) We have all gotten used to this time constant. When ATT made equipment for the phone system in the 1940s, it assumed that each piece of equipment would have a 30 year life. (Could you imagine, you 18 year olds, having your phone until you are 48!?) My wife’s mother had a dryer for 30 years. Lewis Mumford, one of the great scholars of technology in the 20th century, once said “for most Americans progress means accepting what is new because it is new and discarding what is old because it is old.” Are Americans too infatuated with novelty?