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Welcome to the HBR IDA CAST from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kurt Nickish.

A few weeks back, people in Shanghai's downtown were surprised when a swarm of

lights appeared in the night sky. They crane their necks, watching these lights

converge amid the skyscrapers forming a huge pattern. Now this wasn't a light

show as it turns out or an alien invasion. It was a constellation of illuminated drones and

that swarm took shape as a giant QR code. It was an advertisement. The QR code promoted

a role-playing game from the Chinese streaming company Billy Billy. Now outside of China,

this marketing stunt might have really bothered people too commercial, too invasive, too

dystopian. But the willingness of consumers in China to engage with technology and new things,

that's what intrigues and inspires today's guest. He argues that the perception of China

as a copycat and not an innovator is totally out of date. He says the country is a hot bed of

new ideas and not just because of its huge population. Zach Dijkwald is the founder of Young China

Group, a research and market advisory firm. He also wrote the HBR article China's new

innovation advantage. Zach, I'm excited to speak with you. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for

having me, Kurt. So why do you argue that China is such a hot bed of innovation? Well actually,

what I argue is that China is a hot bed of innovation impact. And there's a difference there.

When we imagine the innovation equation, we usually put a lot of emphasis on innovation itself.

But in reality, it's innovation plus adoption equals impact. And pretty much every tech founder,

every app developer, every technologist understands this. You could have the best idea in the world,

...