What the Hell is Innovation Anyway?

Arguably the most overused word in the English language today, “Innovation” is a buzzword if ever there was one, thrown around by politicians, business leaders and academics alike. So it is ironic that few can articulate what innovation actually means!

And in an age of Facebook bots and drone swarms, it’s not surprising that many perceive innovation as a threat: to job security or to societal norms. Uncertainty leads to fear, there is nothing new in that. In 1830, with the invention of the early steam trains in Liverpool and Manchester, many passengers feared that it would be impossible to breathe while travelling at the previously unmatched velocity of these new locomotives, or that their eyes would be damaged by having to adjust to the motion.

The fear of ‘technological unemployment’ (a term popularised by John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s) is also not new. In the fourth century BC, in his philosophical masterwork Politics, Aristotle speculated that if machines could become sufficiently advanced, there would be no more need for human labour. Despite this persistent fear, I would argue that society has consistently created new engaging and satisfying employment as technology replaces existing redundant roles.

Innovation refers to change, specifically that which adds value. Change in business processes or customer experience through new or improved products or services. Today, many of the changes we see are driven by technology and so we often associate innovation with technology, but I would not define it as narrowly as this. Changing organisational structures designed to promote workplace agility (such as the squads, tribes and guilds model being introduced by ANZ) or utilising digital platforms to engage or participate or contribute nationally or globally (such as crowd funding platforms) are innovative in the same way that the Cochlear implant or Wi-Fi is.

Innovation can also be quite subtle. We tend to focus on breakthroughs such as autonomous cars, but the vast majority of innovation is incremental and results from a combination of ideas across disciplines. One of the most exciting areas of innovation today is known as ‘quantified self’, that is the application of data and neural networks to our understanding of the biology of the human body.

Understanding innovation, put another way, is understanding change. And although change can be intimidating, it doesn’t have to be. The importance of education cannot be overstated because a little bit of knowledge goes a long way. As we understand the process of change — that is, we understand the innovation that is underway around us each and every day — the opportunities and the potential begin to materialise.

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” — Charles Darwin

Autonomous cars are coming — no doubt about it. And they will displace existing jobs — taxi and courier drivers, long haul truck drivers, even parents driving their kids to school! But they will also dramatically reduce traffic on our roads, make travel safer and faster, reduce carbon emissions, redefine insurance as we know it and potentially reshape urban cities and communities.

Because we know this change is coming, it’s critical that we prepare ourselves accordingly. Kids ought not be planning for a long-term career as a driver, and I don’t think many are. Many jobs have been displaced over the years: from train drivers to travel agents to a wide range of data entry roles. Frankly, the world is a better place for it.

Young Australians can follow in the footsteps of some of Australia’s finest scientists, engineers and innovators, including:

• Howard Florey, a scientist from Adelaide, who developed penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic, in 1939.
• Dr David Warren, a scientist with what is now the Defence Science and Technology Organisation’s Aeronautical Research Laboratories, who invented the ‘Black Box’ flight recorder in 1958.
• Professor Graeme Clark, who hypothesised and then developed bionic ear technology at Melbourne’s Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital in the 1980s, then founding Cochlear, one of Australia’s largest companies.
• Perth-based plastic surgeon Professor Fiona Wood developed her extraordinary spray-on skin technique in 1992, which has helped thousands of burn victims and including victims from the 2002 Bali bombings.
• Radio-astronomer Dr John O’Sullivan who discovered the potential of Wi-Fi while doing research on black holes at the CSIRO in the 1990s.
• Danish-Australian brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen who invented revolutionary digital mapping software in 2003. A year later, Google Inc. acquired their company and transformed the program into a web application used by millions every day.
• And just last year, Dr Dharmica Mistry made a ground breaking discovery that may make it possible to detect breast cancer through a simple blood test.

The plethora of opportunities available to young Australians entering the workforce over the next decade is tremendously exciting. From digital content creators and product designers to robotics and drone pilots, these are all roles that leverage human creativity and are here to stay.

Innovation is change, change is progress and progress is good. Learn about it. Be inspired by Australia’s innovative history and get excited by what the next generation will achieve on the shoulders of those that came before them.