Eight definitions of innovation

As part of a dissertation I wrote, I collected over 20 definitions of innovation from various books and journals (this took forever). These definitions tend to emphasize one or more of the following: the economic/market/value-creating aspect of innovations; the diffusion/adoption/demand-side of innovations; the implementation/push of innovations; and the role that attitude/energy plays in implementing innovations. Here are eight of them (I haven't included the page numbers here):

1. " . . . introducing new commodities or qualitatively better versions of existing ones; finding new markets; new methods of production and distribution; or new sources of production for existing commodities; or introducing new forms of economic organization." (Schumpeter, 1942)

2. "An innovation is an idea, practice or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption." (Rogers, 1995)

3. "The intersection of invention and insight, leading to the creation of economic value." (U.S. National Innovation Initiative, 2005)

4. "An innovation is anything new that is actually used (enters the market place) - whether major or minor." (von Hippel, 2005)

5. "The adoption of an internally generated or purchased device, system, policy, program, process, product, or service that is new to the adopting organization." (Damanpour, 1991)

6. "Creating new and better ways of doing things that your customers value and that create value for your shareholders." (George et al., 2005)

7. "A new way of doing things . . . that is commercialized." (Porter, 1990)

8. "The successful exploitation of new ideas." (U.K. Department of Trade and Industry, 2003)

Diversity in the workplace: fact or myth?

If you believe what you read on most firms' Web sites, we shouldn't really be worrying too much about innovation, as most firms are already very innovative. This assertion always amazes me, especially since most firms don't even have a clear definition of innovation from which they can work.

Another thing you often read on firms' Web sites is the claim that the firm "values diversity." Really? When we think of diversity, we often imagine all these different people from different backgrounds coming together to create "added value from their differences" as a result of all the "creative friction" that diversity produces. Cirque du Soleil meets Boeing, in other words. Yet many firms never manage to break out of the old, traditional mindset, which, incidently, makes most firms clones of one another.

It's pretty much a given that some of the best insights, ideas and solutions to a firm's problems can be found outside the industry in which the firm normally operates. Eric von Hippel is a big advocate of looking outside the industry, specifically at "lead users" (users whose needs often foreshadow the needs of the mass market) in the development of breakthrough products. Here's a little video about how Unipart, a manufacturer and marketer of car parts, used criminals to solve a couple of their own product development problems. Now that's what I call "valuing diversity".

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Learning innovation from comedians

Answering questions out of sync can have a devastating effect. This is an old video of one of Britain's greatest comedy acts, The Two Ronnies. There are some cultural references in many of the answers, but it's still very funny.

Just a couple of interesting links

Came across this article in The Telegraph, "The Essential Guide to Screwing Up Your Business." Check out Roger von Oech's blog. Roger von Oech is the author of A Whack on the Side of the Head, A Kick in the Seat of the Pants, Expect the Unexpected, and the Creative Whack Pack and Innovative Whack Pack card decks.

Innovation: vacuum cleaners, washing machines and wheel barrows

I used to repair Zanussi washing machines and my dad used to be a door-to-door salesman for Hoover in the 1960s. It was no surprise, then, that I really enjoyed James Dyson's talk on the MIT World Web site. James Dyson is the founder of Dyson, a company that developed, and successfully sold, the bagless vacuum cleaner.

Here are some excerpts from James Dyson's talk:

Advertising

"Unfortunately, you do have to do advertising. . . . I've never invested in advertising . . . I've always let people buy the product, see it, and then as they buy it, the sales of the product pay for more advertising."

Focus Groups

"We do do focus groups. ... they'll give you their opinion but they won't tell you the future. You have to guess at that, thank goodness .. . letters of complaint, I read all of those . . it's gold dust."

Creativity

"It's entirely the way you behave . . . it's your everyday reaction to ideas, not being cynical . . . usually, the silly suggestion is the best suggestion of the year . . . wrong thinking is the best way to start . .. It can set you off on a different path, and eventually you come to a solution that no one else would have thought of, because they are all thinking 'correctly.'"

You can watch the talk HERE.

Disrupting Photoshop

Photoshop must surely be one of the most over-designed pieces of software on the planet. Does anybody know where you can get an easy-to-use photo editor that allows you to quickly superimpose text onto an image and resize it without having to blow a gasket in the process?

Dreamweaver is also guilty of being over designed. So is Microsoft Word. And so is eBay, although, strictly speaking, it's not really software. Maybe Tesco, a British retailer, will offer software that is cheaper and easier to use than all of these now that it is going to start distributing software. Luddites rejoice!