This is a great article for the corporate titans of yesteryear, which puts today's 'innovation malaise' into perspective (as well as putting the IT boom in a historical context). For instance :

""" Perhaps the greatest shock to our Rip Van Winkle economist, however, would be the fact that, with the exception of the plastics industry, the main engines of growth in the past 50 years were already mature or rapidly maturing industries, based on well-known technologies, back in 1913. """

and

""" Within the next ten years, information will become very much cheaper. An hour of computer time today costs several hundred dollars at a minimum; I have seen figures that put the cost at about a dollar an hour in 1973 or so. Maybe it won’t come down that steeply, but come down it will. """

Overall, a very interesting read.