Reel Word

Lately I have been researching the theory of innovation; how to recognize innovation and how stimulate it.  It has suddenly become a very hot topic in academic circles.  This is a good time to be looking into it – before it joins “paradigm shift”, “re-engineering”, “best of breed”, “disruptive”, and other terms that have become so overused as to be distanced from their original meaning.

The best definition I have found for innovation is ‘creativity that people want.’   

Someone who comes up with a new idea is considered to be creative.   But if the idea is left on a shelf (figuratively or literally), then it is throw-away cleverness.  

When someone takes the idea and implements it in a way that has impact for an audience beyond the creator’s immediate circle of friends and family, then it becomes an innovation.  Innovation is, at its essence, the adoption of creative ideas. 

Innovation can generate business opportunities; such as the exploitation of new patents or business models.  Innovation can lead to scientific breakthroughs; such as repurposing tomography research from the oil and medical industries to both industries’ benefit.  Innovation can have social impact; such as the micropayment movement lead by the Grameen Bank. 

The entrepreneur (and intrepreneur ) is at the end of this chain.  The entrepreneur  takes on the risk of developing the innovation into a new venture; for example forming and leading a business, research initiative, or social movement.

There are at least two approaches to stimulating creative thinking.  One person by him or herself, can recognize relationships between previously unrelated concepts.  This can be done informally (a la serendipity) or through a formalized process such as mental exercises.  Alternatively, a group of people, especially a group with a mixed set of skills and backgrounds, can brainstorm ideas and bounce them off each other, triggering new ideas and uncovering new relationships among the ideas. 

Innovation enters the process when the group asks how to actually put the creative ideas into practice.  How to make them real.  Innovation, in a sense, is brainstorming with a soft filter of practicality overlain on it.

Entrepreneurship enters the process when someone takes the innovation and builds a structure to support and propagate it.  

One area of research for those studying innovation is how to measure it.  Patents granted, awards received, number of people lifted out of poverty, etc. are one step removed from a metric for innovation itself.  They reflect area-specific results; business, science, social action, etc.  Perhaps that type of metric can be the raw data for a ‘general theory of innovation’ with an associated collection of meta-metrics.

Another area of research is how to recognize innovation – and innovators – in the early stages of the process; before the innovation and innovator has clearly emerged.  It may be that this area of inquiry will remain at the “I know it when I see it” stage.  It will be very interesting to watch as researchers develop creative tests that could lead to innovative methodologies for early detection. 

Then some entrepreneurs will make fortunes snapping up and building on the best ones.