What Does Innovation Means to You?
Like any buzzword that travels the world back and forth every day, Innovation can really lose its meaning after a while, or at least get confused from what context to the other. It could mean one thing in one culture and a totally different thing in another culture. Even if that culture is the company down the street.
Definitions do matter. Even if there is no universal one for the concept at hand; agreeing on a set definition can really help shape the way we think about things, talk about them, and act upon them. If you Google “definition of innovation”, you will literally get millions of hits. Even experts on the topic have disagreed on it, both in wording and in concept.
Naturally, we will not force a definition on our readers here, but will give you the three main questions to ask yourself and your team whenever embarking on any new “innovative” track.
1. Is it Novel?
Sometimes the word is used interchangeably with “new”, which is not accurate. Novel has a hidden and unique meaning to it, it refers to something that is unusual or interesting on top of being new. It is not a replica of the one preceding it. For example, you can buy a new phone - one that resembles the ones you’ve had before, with slightly more features and capacity. But when smart watches first came out and integrated with your phone, that was a novel idea.
2. Does it help solve a meaningful problem?
And here, the size of the problem isn’t the matter as much as the amount of pain that it causes and the masses of (potential) customers that suffer from it.
3. Does it create value?
This one is easy to measure. Everyone knows that great ideas on paper are pretty much useless. But great ideas that customers refuse to buy, adopt, or use - believe it or not - are still useless. If the very people the idea was designed for, do not see its value - despite your marketing and advertising efforts - then it’s probably not innovative.
*There are plenty of other questions to ask before, during and after you start your innovation project, but more on that later.
There are different ways for your company to follow a unified definition for innovation. One way is to put the above questions up on office walls and make sure employees and managers ask themselves those questions (and more) before taking on new projects or brainstorming new products, services, features, or even a change in processes.
Another way is to sit together with your team and come up with an agreed definition, and then also put it up on the wall to be a constant reminder to current and future teams on how the company thinks about and approaches innovation.
Here are a few examples of how experts on the subject define Innovation:
- “Turning an idea into a solution that adds value from a customer’s perspective” - Nick Skillicorn
- “The application of ideas that are novel and useful” - David Burkus
- “The fundamental way the company brings constant value to their customers business or life and consequently their shareholders & stakeholders” - Paul Hopcraft
And the simplest of all…
- “Staying relevant” - Stephen Shapiro
For more about this topic, download our latest book "Innovation: Work Essentials in the Third Millennium" for FREE:
