The Elusive Definition of Innovation

Everybody does it, or claim to, but what it is? Is it something you do? Something which happens due to a certain flow of actions? A mindset? During a World Café Event I got the opportunity to ask the simple yet complex question,

“what is innovation and what does it mean to you in your work?”

It was a very diverse group of people, ranging from students to entrepreneurs to people with decades of experience in their respective industries. The answers reflected this as well but there were some common threads.

The ability to share and getting feedback: This was the most popular statement and arrived in varied forms such as, “…I need to be close to creative people”, “When I’m on my own I end up believing my idea sucks.” Another variation of this was the expressed need to have someone who pushed them to dare to fail, someone to support them when they get back up and tried again. Especially the entrepreneurs spoke of simply knowing they had someone who watched their back alleviated the dreaded “What if I fail”-state. In other words, innovation needs a space to happen.

Simplify, optimise, and adding value to our lives: To put it simply, to solve a real pain point and simplify the way we live. An innovation like this literally changes the world as we know it.

“It is never done.” Iterate, iterate, iterate. Ask why five times. Get people engaged and involved. Very few products actually ends up being used as intended, it only seems like it is because it is the only product you, as an end-consumer, gets to see.

In conclusion, innovation does not seem to want to be defined, though linked with collaboration. Tied together in context of culture, workflow, product, participation, and solving a real problem.

Perhaps to define innovation is to continually asking what it is, since by its very nature it is always changing. In either case, it is a conversation worth having(and one I’m glad I had).