Words Matter: Taking Back “Innovation”

Innovation is one of the most overused words in advertising, marketing and business. And not only is it overused, it is often used incorrectly, most commonly as synonymous with the even more ambiguous notion of something that is “cool.”

As a former English major, and as someone who makes their living in the world of communications, I take words and their meanings very seriously. Strictly speaking Webster’s defines innovation as a new idea, device or method. This definition, while accurate, is not terribly useful as the word has clearly taken on much more complex meaning.

Apparently I am not alone in this frustration as a bit of digging led me to a host of blogs, essays and books written on the subject, each author probing into the origin and meaning of the world from slightly different perspectives but ultimately in pursuit of a working definition that would serve their own thinking on the subject.

As my reading progressed I began to identify common themes and pull out for me what felt to be the essential constituent parts of the definition of innovation.

THE WORLD HAS ALWAYS NEEDED INNOVATION

Innovation may be the buzzword of the moment, and while often associated with shiny tech or digitally led objects, the world has always required innovation. The tech revolution that we are currently living in is an innovation but so to was the industrial revolution that preceded it. A 2013 article in The Atlantic does a great job on the history of innovation taking us all the way back to the 17th century.

WHAT PEOPLE MEAN WHEN THEY SAY INNOVATION

I was particularly drawn to Scott Berkun’s analysis. Author of numerous books on the subject of creativity including, “The Myths of Innovation” Berkun has written and blogged extensively on the topic of innovation and catalogued the four most common ways the word innovation is used:

A New idea: Innovative = creative thinking. It doesn’t have to necessarily be a good idea, or something that can be made into a product, just interesting, different or creative.

A kind of product: Some people separate ideas from innovations and they draw the line at products. To be an innovation means you not only have an idea, but successfully deliver it to the world as a product. It’s not an innovation if it isn’t out in the world in someone’s service. So you can take someone else’s ideas, and if you’re the first to make a product out of them, you’re an innovator (e.g. Edison and the lightbulb, Apple and the iPod).

A kind of successful product: Some business books mark new ideas that fail commercially as below the innovation bar. So the Apple Newton and The Apple Lisa, wouldn’t qualify as they were commercial failures. But the Macintosh and the iPod qualify as innovations.

Something that is cool or perceived as cool. Often this is based on novelty, in that the idea seems new. But as the people making this judgement often aren’t experts in the history of a particular kind of idea, they’re often falsely perceiving an idea as novel.

Berkun’s analysis of the word ultimately led him toward a new definition of the word. Innovation = significant positive change. As in the case with Webster’s definition, though perfectly accurate, for me this did not encapsulate the full breadth of the word. That said, what did spark for me was the notion of change. This begins to go beyond new and into a territory where new must lead to use.

INNOVATION VERSUS INVENTION

Again, I was not alone in my thoughts that newness is not enough. A wealth of writing exists on the difference between invention, as the new, and innovation as the use of the new. Bill Walker makes this case in Wired, “Companies often claim to be a “leader in innovation”, and show a large pile of patents as evidence. Patents are evidence of inventions, of having thought of something first, and documenting the new invention through a legal process. The usefulness of those inventions is not proven, so “inventions” do not always equate to “innovations.” There are many patents, which really do not have a use or have influenced no products or industries. Patents without a “use” are not innovation.”

Invention then seems to imply new for the sake of being new, or new for the benefit of being new. There is an openness in invention that allows for infinite possibilities. Innovation however seems to require more of a purpose, an innovation solves a problem. This was big for me. This was the missing link. Perhaps simplistic but here is where I landed in my own definition –

Innovation = A New and Better Way of Solving a Problem

Hardly complete, but this is what I like about it:

It can be an idea, a strategy, a process or a product, as long as it is solving a problem in a new and better way it can be defined as an innovation.

It requires the identification of the problem to be solved thus removing the trap of innovation as something cool for cool’s sake.

Here are some more great definitions and thinking on innovation for anyone who is interested. I’d love to hear your thoughts.