Invention vs Innovation. Why so much innovation goes wrong.
We all need to learn the difference between the two, says Creative Partner Brian Cooper.
It seems that innovation is everywhere. The truth is that in our rush to embrace new technologies, and to be seen “on the cutting edge”, much of what we think of as innovation is in fact invention.
To illustrate, imagine yourself in 1966 asking what the future of commercial flight would be: planes that travel faster than the speed of sound or double decker buses with wings on? You could be forgiven for putting your money on supersonic travel. Sexy, fast and futuristic, it would have seemed to have everything going for it. The reality, however, was very different.
On 26 November 2003 Concorde made its final flight, landing at Filton, Bristol, UK. As the plane was mothballed so too were the ambitions of commercial supersonic flight. In it’s place the jumbo jet, launched 4 years after Concorde in 1970 and weighing in at a massive 350 tonnes, succeeded where Concorde could not. Why?
The reason is to do with the critical difference between innovation and its oft-confused cousin, invention. Innovation’s true definition is newly introduced, (from the Latin verb Innovare, to renew), whereas invention is to discover (Latin verb Invenire, to find).
Where innovation triumphs is in how it introduces inventions into the marketplace, and disrupts convention. It is much more than coming up with clever new ideas, and its success depends largely on economics, human behaviour and corporate culture.
Concorde failed because it wasn’t economically viable, and therefore couldn’t scale. There simply were not enough people who thought the speed vs cost benefit was worth it. Everyone would rather pay less and arrive later.
The same economic logic has also influenced the battle between PCs and smartphones. As Benedict Evans, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, points out we are moving from a PC supply chain to a mobile supply chain. This is because it is cheaper to replace a Smartphone every 2 years, as Moore’s law doubles processing power, and because mobile components typically cost $40–200 versus $500- 1000 for a PC.
Smartphones are the jumbos of the digital age. They may not be the fastest and slickest computers but they are the most effective at cost per unit, and, most importantly, they can scale. By 2020 there will be 4 billion people who have access to the Internet, each with a smartphone.
The success of the Jumbo relied on the fundamental desire of people wanting to travel. The smartphone relies on our fundamental need to always be connected. Now ask yourself what Google Glass relies on. Glass is a fascinating invention, but alas not a great piece of innovation. The promise of augmented reality for all simply didn’t satisfy any basic human prerequisite, and people had massive concerns about privacy.
To its credit, Google has learned from the exercise — a prerequisite of its “fail fast” ethos. But many commentators were too dazzled by the creativity of the invention to critically assess whether anybody would actually want it.
Apple has never really had this problem, but there again they’ve never actually invented anything. From the graphic interface and mouse, invented by Hewlett Packard, to the smartphone, invented by IBM (it was called Simon), they have made other people’s ideas work. Where Apple excels is in understanding human behaviour. Time and again they identify inventions people will actually want, even when they don’t know they want it, and then bring them to market at scale.
Google are good at this too, witness Google maps, (a modern day Yellow pages), they simply have a different school of thought to Apple over invention. One invents in house, Google X, the other buys invention in, Fingerprint ID. The one thing you can be sure they do agree on, however, is a strong culture of innovation. In both companies innovation is part of the DNA that runs right through every employee.
This is not the case with other companies. The modus operandi here is to sub-contract innovation out to so-called Innovation Labs. These should really be termed Invention Labs, as they dream up ideas with little thought to real innovation. Conceived in isolation, and divorced from the everyday business, many of these ideas remain sidelined.
The reason many companies do this is because they want to hedge their innovation, particularly ones that have become successful. Their conservative culture protects and defends ground already won, rather than conquer new territory. They in effect ‘Play not to lose’ rather than ‘Play to win’, often in the hope that they won’t cannibalise sales of their core product.
This is a mistake. ‘Playing to win’ recognises when new innovation is better than the existing offering and backs the winner — often at the cost of other products. When companies ‘Play not to lose’ new products don’t get the proper investment to scale, even if they might be potential winners.
Kodak invented the digital camera long before anyone else, but didn’t invest in it because they thought it would cannibalise sales of photographic film. Doh!
Invention is a wonderful thing. And the discovery of new ideas is absolutely necessary for innovation to happen. But, in itself, it isn’t innovation. If the process stops here, then — by definition – it goes nowhere. For these ideas to be commercially successful, you need real innovation to introduce the ideas into market. The success of which will always depend on economic viability, human psychology and an innovative corporate culture that is all pervasive.
To pretend otherwise is to invent your own downfall.
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