Thomas E. Ricks:

VOICE
Warnings for the U.S. military about innovation and the information age: The Pentagon looks like a minicomputer firm

Here I want to focus on Michael Horowitz’s warnings for the U.S. military in his book The Diffusion of Military Power. They include these:

“The information age may portend a much greater level of risk for U.S. conventional military superiority than some previous authors have envisioned.”

Don’t get too comfortable just because you enjoy current dominance. Horowitz cites the example of Digital Equipment Corporation, which was a power in minicomputers, but failed to understand the emergence of the personal computer market. It had the resources, but lacked the imagination, and so failed to deal with changes in the environment — I would say a bit like our national security leaders in September 2001.

A great danger, especially for mature organizations such as the U.S. military, is investing in “incremental improvements to the last great thing, rather than the next great thing.” So don’t confuse innovations that enhance your current way of doing business with innovations that may require a new way of doing business — but may also produce much greater gains.

Eric Jackson:

Instead of market predictions, I asked people for their best “sleeper ideas” for 2014. A sleeper idea is something that few people see coming. It’s a little followed idea that suddenly goes mainstream.
 
 In 2013, few people were talking about 3D printing and Bitcoin in January. Yet everyone was at the end of the year.
 
 So when I approached people for this year’s list, I simply said, “give me your top 3 “sleeper ideas”… they could be a public company (to go up or down), a private company, or a trend or other type of idea.
 
 In order to get the best collection of “sleeper ideas,” I knew we had to approach more than just traders. Therefore, you’ll notice that the respondents this year come from tech, venture capital, hedge funds, as well as trading.
 My hope when I started compiling these lists three years ago is that we would all learn from each other sharing our thoughts together. I think this year’s collection of ideas – from 55 of some of the smartest people I know — is the best yet and I want to thank each participant for taking the time to look forward and take their best shot at guessing which ideas are ready to shine in 2014. Here they are (in no particular order):