Onwards and Upwards

Progress in sport can provide useful insight into the nature of innovation. For example, progress in high jumping seems to show that:

• Competition drives innovation

• Technologies matter

• Great ideas diffuse

• The best is only the best for so long

It was Richard Fosbury who developed a different way to jump high - by going over backwards. Before then high jumpers went forwards. It took Fosbury many months to perfect the new technique. In effect, he developed an improved 'soft technology' for this sport. Others quickly saw the potential, copied the Fosbury Flop and improved it. But there seems to be a limit in the capability of the Fosbury Flop to enable improvement, as the current world record (2018) has not improved since 1993.