Innovation is motherhood and apple pie in business. Who doesn't want to be the next Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg? When we think about innovation we tend to think about revolutionary new products and big, world-changing ideas that define or redefine entire industries. A quick Amazon.com search for books on innovation returns a modest 336,485 results; clearly a lot has been written about innovation. Predicting innovation is the focus of this great piece on AdAge.com by Phil Roos, where he provides some excellent, and slightly surprising insights.
One of the first big insights is that innovation is largely incremental rather than big bang. Innovations come more often through continued enhancement and evolution than through moments where the skies part and an epiphany occurs. Phil's piece goes on to elaborate on how innovation patterns exist and how those patterns can be deconstructed into discrete elements. Those elements are roughly broken into two categories; mainstream and new. The key to innovation in this model is to read the patterns, and attempt to provide value to the "whitespace". Phil also rightly acknowledges that even within this methodology, a little creative genius doesn't hurt.
What are the marketing implications of these insights on innovation? For me the implication is that our energies should be focused not on trying to identify or latch onto the next trendy marketing thing, but on improving current initiatives. One of the best methods of improvement is looking at what others are doing and copying it. Emulate, mirror, leverage, build upon.... use another word if you can't bring yourself to use the word copy, but learning from the experiences and successes of others is simply savvy business. Imitation then, becomes the foundation for innovation.
Best practices as a jumping off point, innovation begins as those foundations are explored, adapted and built upon. Bottom line is this means we should all spend less time chasing after the next big idea and spend more time working to evolve what we already have.
A parting thought on this comes from an unlikely source. Part of the Fast Company 30 Second MBA Series, Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame offers his thoughts on innovation/imitation. Enjoy.
"One of the first big insights is that innovation is largely incremental rather than big bang." I really like this. Very encouraging!
Posted by: The other Chris | November 21, 2009 at 06:54 PM