Innovation

Promoting Innovation

  • invention: creating or making up something new
  • creativity: developing new and imaginative ideas into reality
  • innovation: the activity of creating new ideas and converting them into useful applications (new goods and services)
    • more likely to occur when organizations have the proper culture, resources, and reward system to support it

How Does Failure Affect Innovation?

  • factors that reduce an organizations ability to learn from failure:

  

  1. play the “blame game”

      1. blaming an individual when failures are due to internal or external matters

  1. suffer “self-serving bias”

      1. self-serving bias: perceiving yourself as overly favorable

  1. don’t recognize that all failures aren’t created equal

      1. some may be preventable, some uncontrollable

  1. be afraid to discuss failures and take risks

      1. the company isn’t a learning organization

  1. are reluctant to experiment

Two Myths About Innovation

  • myth #1: innovation happens in a “eureka” moment
    • most innovation is the product of hard work and dedication
  • myth #2: innovation can be systemized
    • there isn’t a standardized process to achieve success
    • though success is unpredictable, cultural conditions can increase the likelihood of success

6 Seeds of Innovation

  1. hard work in a specific direction
  2. hard work with direction change
  3. curiosity
  4. wealth and money
  5. necessity
  6. combination of seeds

Types of Innovation

  • product innovation: change in the appearance or performance of a product or the creation of a new one
  • process innovation: change in the way a product is conceived, manufactured, or disseminated
  • TODAY, INNOVATION IS ABOUT MORE THAN NEW PRODUCTS, IT’S ABOUT REINVENTING BUSINESS PROCESSES AND BUILDING ENTIRELY NEW MARKETS THAT MEET UNTAPPED CUSTOMER NEEDS

Focus of the Innovation

  • improvement innovations: enhance or upgrade an existing product, service, or process
    • these types of innovations are often incremental and are less likely to generate significant amounts of revenue
  • new-direction innovation: a totally new or different approach to a product, service, process, or industry
    • the invention of breakthrough products or services that are aimed at creating brand new markets and customers