There has to be a better word than “Innovative”. The benchmark is very low.
The most overused buzzword today has to be “innovative”. It has to be, I can’t think of anything else that could compare.
It’s a throwaway term that we use in every sales pitch, describing ourselves, companies or other people.
There are the synonyms of ‘inventive’, ‘new’, ‘original’, ‘ingenious’. It’s aspirational to work reflecting these terms. You’re certainly ‘innovative’ if you can invent something that is original. However, it means nothing without executing, or shipping the idea.
To be innovative today you don’t need to be original or inventive. We have thousands of cloud applications that use artificial intelligence, automation, mobility, create beautiful experiences. We have vast libraries of free or cheap education, teaching everything from ways to build — programming, chatbots, engineering through to ways to think — Design Thinking, Agile, Lean Startup.
If you lack skills and don’t want to learn, you can hire someone to help you at ridiculously cheap rates.
The low benchmark
Here’s the thing. You don’t need to invent anything today to be ‘innovative’. The benchmark is so low. The largest companies are still run out of spreadsheets, post-it notes and Outlook. Employees are still paid based on a ‘working week’ of 40 hours and not outcomes. We still take vacation leave instead of sick leave for mental health. We still spend 50% of our days on meetings with more than 3 people (also known as a waste of time). We still send emails, screenshots, meeting invites when we could just do a 2 minute video summary that answers everything. We still spend hours and hours, days, weeks and years of our lives on Powerpoint presentations instead of building prototypes.
Here, I made this
All you have to do is use what’s already out there. We can prototype, build and execute on new ideas so rapidly. This doesn’t need Powerpoint. It just needs you to use what’s out there. Open source communities, online software, open communities, low cost help. There are tons of open communities on Slack to get realtime help. I once found myself in a conversation with the creator of D3.js on slack.
You have all the tools and platforms you need to come into work, or to your customer and say “here, I made this”. The Powerpoint presentations are the vehicles stuck in morning peak hour traffic, the prototype is the helicopter flying over them.
Literally raining cats and dogs
Words can literally change meaning over time. This actually happened to the word “literally” — it’s so often been used incorrectly that in 2013 several dictionaries changed the meaning to include ‘figuratively’.
The same has happened to innovative. It’s a junk word. Angor Wat at sunrise used to be awesome — it used to inspire awe. Now the new Big Mac can also be awesome. Awesome is a junk word now. As is innovation.
Our future won’t be shaped by innovators, not by our current use of the word at least.
What should we call it instead?
I don’t know what new word we should use, but I hope it’s aligned to execution. Someone who sees what’s happening and decides to implement and execute the ideas that have already been generated. Shipper isn’t the right word — but I’ll use it for now. Amazon is a shipper, they get things out into the real world. My favourite movie this year is an Amazon Studios movie, Manchester by the Sea.
“Real artists ship” — Steve Jobs.
With all these assets out there, and being able to ship within your own control and effort, how could you not?
