• fresh marketing approach that helps grow our customer base (value)
• fresh process that saves us time (value)
• fresh products that help us grow revenue (value)
• fresh line of services that customers appreciate (value)
• fresh way to collaborate that saves time and helps us communicate better (value)
• fresh technology to help us be more productive and organized (value)

• fresh thinking that that challenges the status quo and helps us think of new profit potentials (value)
• fresh talent that comes up with new and valuable ideas more often than those comfortable with the status quo.

The reality is that innovation is broad and it must be narrowed to have meaningful action.

Leadership often expresses the need to innovate becuase they are interested in new value creation.  When they express the need to innovate, it’s important to delve into specifics and translate their feelings associated with innovation into something tangible.  Otherwise, using the word innovation may sound good, but it can be interpreted as… jibberish.

Feedback

What other examples can you share?

Berkun’s well written argument published here at Harvard Business Review suggests that we use the word innovation to simply mean something “great”.  He cites things like the Apple iPhone, Google search engine, and Pixar’s films as examples of output we all herald as innovative…not b/c they were the first ones, but because they produced great output many of us love.  He also suggests that people classed as innovative are not thinking about innovation or trying to be innovative, rather, they are just focused on great output…and innovation is the perception of successful output by the masses.  Berkun has good reasoning here–because something perceived as “Great” by common consent could mean that we all value something that has impacted us.  This is one key ingredient to the definition of innovation.

While I believe Berkun’s explanation helps simplify the implied meanings that go along with using the over-used “innovation” verbiage, I believe its still missing something…because “great” things are not always innovative.  There are great products that we all love… reliable barbeques, cars, planes, microwaves, music players that are not innovative.  Great may mean reliable, safe, or quality.  Things may be coined “great” by simply meeting a standard/expectation.  A microwave may be “great” because it never breaks down or a car may be “great” because it gets good gas mileage.  Clearly, “great”, like “innovation”, can also be very vague and ambiguous.

All great products may have at one time been innovative when they were first out (i.e. the first car, the first barbeque, the first plane, the first microwave), but as Berkun illustrates in his article, being first is not a requisite for being innovative. Those that are first in a category are by default new, but being new isn’t the sole qualifier for innovation nor is it required to be innovative.

Its also no easy task to create something great valued by masses, so kudos must be given to Apple, Google, and Pixar for creating sophisticated stuff yet so elegantly simple for the masses to understand, appreciate, and use, but we label these companies as “innovative” for something MORE than just “great” products. So if being “great” does not wholly mean innovative and if being “first” does not wholly mean innovative, what does?  I believe its the combination of the two.

The other missing meaning associated with “innovation” is that it must also be fresh.  This may mean that only part of the item is new.  The Apple iPhone wasn’t the first smart phone and the iPod wasn’t the first music player, but they were completely fresh approaches and many intuitive elements were new. The Pixar films also took on fresh imaginative approaches that were valued by users/watchers and Google built something elegantly simple and intuitive for us to use, yet extremely complex under the hood.

My colleague from Deloitte Consulting’s strategy practice, Brent Dance (and cousin), corroborated, with this paraphrased explanation:

“Fresh is different, intuitive, and imaginative….like when we see something like the iPhone and it just feels like it should have always worked like this, as if everything to date has failed to perk our imagination until this “fresh” concept came along.  It’s more than great because it MEETS our imagination.  In short, I believe the word “innovative” is a human attempt at explaining a phenomenon that we feel but can’t explain in words … but we do know it is something not only great that impacted us, but also something imaginative, different, pragmatic, and elegantly simple.”

If innovation is also associated with our human feelings, as Brent suggest, it’s no wonder it is used so differently, and yet, this does not mean it doesn’t deserve definition.  Innovation should be defined–and “fresh” + “great” (something we value) makes our intended meaning of innovation whole.  While that may still be ambiguous, it may further clarify our usage and help us better understand our intended meaning.

Feedback

Do you agree that innovation must also be “fresh” and “great”?  What does innovation mean to you?

• C: Creatives and Creativity: You may be born creative…many are. Or you may learn creativity…many do. Either way, the art of “new” starts with you.
• E: Entrepreneurs and Enthusiasm: Entrepreneurs have long been known for Innovation. An entrepreneur’s secret ingredient–an undying enthusiasm that gives them the energy to go through the ups and downs when relying on W-Me vs W-2.
• N: Networkers and The Net: Tapping your networks is often what helps make things happen. There is no better place than the Net to connect easily, especially with the rise of web 2.0. Naturally, the network happy net gen is expected to be the “creative class”.
• T: Teams and Talent: It’s important to have talent, a key ingredient to the confidence needed to let the creative juices flow, but a talented team has the power to do innovation to the X power. Sparks occur in discussion with talent but flames occur within teams of talent.
• R: R&D and Risk: To create something new, you have to know that its “new” and you have to have the resources to create “new”. Ever heard of “research and development”? They are the historic company function often in charge of innovation. Research helps you avoid re-inventing the wheel and differentiate from competitors. (Comprehensive searches can be done pretty quick these days). But research can only take you so far until you need to take some risk to share and create your ideas (development). Many can do research, months and years of it, but few get to the risky part.
• I: Idea Makers and Initiation: Innovation starts with ideas. Ideas are often companies most closely guarded secrets. But ideas must be initiated. Innovation can be as simple as taking a few baby steps most don’t take.
• C: Customers and Collaboration: Innovation is found to be very closely tied to collaboration, especially open collaboration. Your half idea is built upon other’s half ideas. Especially with customers. Customers help determine perception of value and there is no such thing as Innovation unless “new” is accompanied with “value”

We believe these inputs are CENTRIC to Innovation and result in fresh value.

Feedback:

What do you think the the key ingredients and sources of innovation are? What are we missing? Do you agree with our key sources and ingredients?

The Problem

From the Economist to Wikipedia to Websters to Barack Obama to Innovation Zen, around the globe, we seek tangible answers for an intangible question: What is Innovation? Definitions vary and people mean different things. After reviewing dozens of definitions from a diverse set of sources, I propose a consensus on a simple definition…as a basis for future conversations about Innovation. Note the red and green highlighting in the following definitions that help lead to the consensus.

The 30 + Innovation Definitions

• “fresh thinking that creates value” Richard Lyons via Economist article cited below
• “new products, business processes and organic changes that create wealth or social welfare” OECD think tank via Economist article cited below

The Economist. Something new under the sun: A Special report on innovation, Vaitheeswaran, Vijay. October 13th, 2007, pg. 4

• “Technically, “innovation” is defined merely as “introducing something new;” there are no qualifiers of how ground-breaking or world-shattering that something needs to be—only that it needs to be better than what was there before. And that’s where the trouble starts when an organization requests “innovation services” from a consulting firm. Exactly what are they really requesting? The fact is, innovation means different things to different people.”

Business Week.

• “Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship… the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.”

Peter Drucker at Quotations Page

• Innovation is defined “aschange that creates a new dimension of performance“

Peter Drucker at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation

• “Innovation: a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation; the creation of something in the mind; the act of starting something for the first time; introducing something new“

Wordnet

• “Innovation: First of all, here is my own definition of innovation: ‘invention refers to new concepts or products that derive from individual’s ideas or from scientific research. Innovation, on the other hand, is the commercialization of the invention itself”

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

• “The term innovation may refer to both radical and incremental changes to products, processes or services. The often unspoken goal of innovation is to solve a problem. Innovation is an important topic in the study of economics, business, technology, sociology, and engineering. Since innovation is also considered a major driver of the economy, the factors that lead to innovation are also considered to be critical to policy makers.”

Wikipedia

• “Something new or different introduced”

Dictionary.com

• “Innovation is converting ideas to numbers”

Information Week

• “Innovation is a process, involving multiple activities, performed by multiple actors from one or several organizations, during which new combinations of means and/or ends, which are new for a creating and/or adopting unit, are developed and/or produced and/or implemented and/or transferred to old and/or new

Joerg Gemuenden at Innovation.cc

• “Innovation is then simply new technology, i.e. the systematic application of (new) knowledge to (new) resources to produce (new) goods or (new) services”

Maciej Soltynski at Innovation.cc

• “Any creative idea, getting implemented or realized successfully, is Innovation.”

Hexaware Blog

• “The creation of new products and/or services”

Investor Words

• “Innovation is imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of commercial value“

Innovation Productivity Blog

• “Something newly introduced”

The Free Dictionary

• “PEOPLE using new knowledge and understanding to experiment with new possibilities in order to implement new concepts that create new value“

Think Smart Blog

• Innovation: “The practical translation of ideas into new or improved products, services, processes, systems or social interactions”

The University of Mebourne

• “Innovation. Something new or improved, having marketable potential, including (1) development of new applications for existing technologies, (2) refinement of existing technologies, or (3) development of new applications for existing technologies.”

Zyn

• “Innovation lowers the costs and/or increases the benefits of a task”

Yost

• “Innovation means venturing away from familiar ground into uncharted territory“

SCS

• “Innovation needs structure. We need to originally explore the regions of creativity so we can bring method to the madness of originality. We need to expand that special resource known as innovativeness so that we are not dealing with a finite resource but with a renewable one. We need to give everyone in an organization the chance to develop innovative competencies. We need to make the systematic application of innovation real. “

Real Innovation

• “Innovation is the creation of the new or the re-arranging of the old in a new way”

Michael Vance at Famous Quote

• “To innovate is not to reform”

Innovation Zen

• Innovation: “the introduction of something new“

Edmund Burke at Famous Quote

• “Innovation is really about responding to change in a creative way; it’s about generating new ideas, conducting R&D, improving processes or revamping products and services. At another level, it’s also a mindset in your business; your employees are always focused on continuous improvement and constantly thinking outside of the box”

BDC

• “The successful exploitation of new ideas”

Ber

• “Innovation is a process of taking new ideas through to satisfied customers. It is the conversion of new knowledge into products and services”

Vadim Kotelnikov at 1000 advice

• “Innovation: The process of creating a product or service solution that delivers significant new customer value. The process begins with the selection of the customer and market, includes the identification and prioritization of opportunities, and ends with the creation of an innovative product or service.”

Ulwick, Anthony W., What customers want. New York: McGraw-Hill 2005, Glossary,180.

• “Innovation is not the result of thinking differently. It is the result of thinking deliberately (in specific ways) about existing problems and unmet needs.”

Razeghi, Andrew. The Riddle. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008,1, 24.

• “Innovation is the embodiment, combination, and/or synthesis of knowledge in novel, relevant, valued new products, processes, or services.”

Leonard, Dorothy, and Swap Walter. 1999. When Sparks Fly. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 7.

• “Innovation is the creation of something that improves the way we live our lives”

Barack Obama quoted in Business Week’s “In” sub section, p. 6, November 2007

The Consensus

For the most part, the aforementioned definitions hit on two strong chords of what Innovation really is. As a consensus summary definition, Innovation is

a) something fresh (new, original, or improved)

b) that creates value

Something new is not enough for the definition of innovation. There are plenty cases where something new has no new value ( a new color of a product or a new chemical produced that does nothing).  Sometimes, the value creation results because the item is simply useful to us.  We can create a lot of fresh or new things that are of no use and no value.  It must create value to be innovation.

Also note that the “something” could be a process, product, or service and can start as small as your ideas and thoughts in your brain.  In that case, it might just be innovative thinking.

On a parallel note, Sir Ken Robinson, author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, and a leading expert on innovation and human resources, suggested an almost exact definition for creativity when he said: “In fact, creativity, which I define as the process of having original ideas that have value, more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.” Although he used the definition for creativity, it’s a strong synonym of innovation. See quote and more here.

Here is a good example: One of my colleagues discovered a new process to make the sugar substitute, Xylitol, for 1/10 of the cost.  Xylitol (found in Trident & Dentyne gum) has the unique capability to actually help fight cavities.  Read more about the company here.  As a result of this “innovation”, Xylitol could become cheap enough (valuable savings) for us to use it more regularly, and thereby, improve our teeth while we consume the sweets that typically ruin our teeth. Note that the process was something new that created value.

Now that we understand what Innovation is, we can comfortably start writing and collaborating with readers on this blog. In the next post, we explore what 7 key principles and ideas to innovation.

Feedback

What other good definitions am I missing? Do you agree/disagree with my consensus on what “innovation” is? I look forward to hearing your thoughts on one of the most important words that will shape the future of our world and business.