“Sculpting innovation is all for explaining the cloud of definitions surrounding innovation and concludes to a personal understanding of innovation as a concept on both business and general levels”.
The dictionary (Chambers, 1992, p, 465) says:
“Innovation – Something new which is introduced.”
“Innovate – To make changes; to introduce new ideas, methods etc.”
In an everyday view, the term ‘innovation’ or to ‘innovate’ is seen as something new. This could be such thing as a new invention, theory or concept. So it is easy to accept that people such as James Dyson, Thomas Edison or Alexander Graham Bell, all showed a firm aspect of innovation through inventing.
However, just because something is not an original invention, does not mean that it cannot be interpreted as innovative… or does it?
Jacob Kragh from LEDO Education, (in the video link) talks about the concept of innovation.
“The majority of things that are going on in innovation are smaller levels of innovation that is leveraging other peoples ideas.” (Kragh, 2011)
In his video, he describes innovation with a high emphasis on ‘creativity’, saying that innovation is not sole to inventions and original ideas, but innovation can be to build upon existing ideas or to do different things with original ideas. In order for innovation to be successful, he says we must work together.
In conclusion the dictionary definition identifies that innovation is only present in new ideas, concepts, etc. But when you go more into the business world, you discover that innovation is more a way of being creative, either with new ideas or reinterpreting old ideas. Overall innovation in a business scenario will not affiliate itself with just ‘new’ inventions and ‘new’ concepts. Goffin (2005, p, 9) identifies that ‘Porter’ and ‘Schumpeter’ use the word new in their definitions of innovation. But it has to be enforced that innovation does not exist in only ‘new’ products or concepts, as Goffin further states, “many commercial innovations are not totally original”.
Think for a second of a phone company. Nokia, O2, Samsung, Vodafone, T-Mobile, the list goes on. All these organizations sell the same things at the end of the day (mobile phone), it’s the small differences which make these companies and their products innovative, not the concept of always inventing something new.
As you can see from the picture above, innovation for mobile phones has developed time and time again. Above are just a few examples of the development of mobiles, what is noticeable is the size of the phone. In this case innovation is in changing something old to make it better.
With all this confusion of the concept of ‘innovation’ poses the question ‘how do we recognise innovation?’
I have already pointed out the innovation is not only something ‘new’ through an invention or original idea, but it can be a reinterpretation of an original idea.
Jacob Kragh brought up the notion of ‘creativity’. ‘Creativity’ is only one characteristic of innovation.
Characteristics of innovation:
- Creativity
- Invention
- Diffusion
- Event
- Trajectory
- Change
- Process
- Context
Zaltman et al (1973, p. 110) in King and Anderson (1995) however suggest that there are 3 main ‘dimensions’ to innovation:
– Programmed/Non-programmed. Basically those innovations which are scheduled/discussed in advance. What this method suggests is that innovation can be planned or it can be a surprise and build upon an idea. Maybe this idea suggests that innovation is ‘free-flowing’ and not necessarily structured?
– Instrumental-ultimate. Described as “whether innovation is introduced as an end in itself (ultimate) or as a means to facilitate the adoption of a further innovation (instrumental) (Zaltman, 1973, p.110-111).
– Radicalness. Which Zaltman identifies ‘innovation’ as a ‘risky concept’. Which in some cases is fair, but can be scrutinized because if research shows that innovation is clearly not a risky option and will only do good for company, there is only minimal, if not any risk involved in decision making.
Reference List
Image from ‘The Telegraph – London Ice Sculpting Festival 2010 at Canary Warf’ Available from:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/uknews/6998461/London-Ice-Sculpting-Festival-2010-at-Canary-Wharf.html?image=6
Accessed: 17/12/2011
Catherine Schwartz. 1992. Chambers Dictionary. W & R Chambers Ltd. Edinburgh.
‘Ingenia - James Dyson on Innovation’. 2005. Available from:
http://www.ingenia.org.uk/ingenia/issues/issue24/dyson.pdf
Accessed: 17/12/2011
Lee Krystek. 2005. ‘Who invented the lightbulb?’ Available from:
http://www.unmuseum.org/lightbulb.htm
Accessed: 17/12/2011
At&t. 2011. ‘Inventing the telephone’. Available from:
http://www.corp.att.com/history/inventing.html
Accessed: 17/12/2011
Jacob Kragh. 2011. ‘What is innovation?’ Available from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEG8i7kgPb4
Accessed: 17/12/2011
Goffin and Mitchell. 2005. Innovation Management: Strategy and Implementation using the Pentathlon Framework. Palgrave Macmillan
Available from:
http://www.palgrave.com/business/goffin/about/1403912602_02_cha01.pdf
Accessed: 17/12/2011
Image from ‘Celnet Mobiles’ Available from:
http://www.celtnet.org.uk/mobile-phone/mobile-phone-information.php
Accessed: 17/12/2011
Nigel King and Neil Anderson. 1995. Innovation and Change in Organizations. Routledge. London.
No comments:
Post a Comment