Welcome to the new blog! Great post to kick things off. I especially appreciate the suggestion on asking "How can we make great things?" rather than "How can we be innovative?"

As is the answer to most great things in life, I think the answer is hard work and persistence - but those are so much less glamorous then innovation.

Scott I think you are right here. Though I would add:

Experimental Stage (R &D)
I
I
Innovation on products
I
Innovation selection process
I
I
Marketing innovation (debut)

I guess it's just the difference between focusing on "you" versus focusing on "them."

When we make it all about others--the people for whom we are creating, writing, inventing, building, etc.--that's when we get to the good stuff. We innovate. We succeed. We move forward and UP.

When it's about us, well, then it's just about us. It's hard to get much past that.....

Abby: Thanks for the welcome!

Hard work is always underrated. In fact often when there is hard work, and it was the difference between the team who won and the team who lost, they talk about other things :)

The upside is this: no matter how well publicized hard work is (Edison's "99% perspiration" quote, etc.) it will always be in demand.

Working Girl: Sure, I agree with that. My hero in all this, believe it or not is Orwell. When we speak plainly and use strong, clear language, all sorts of stupid things happen less :)

So, innovation is just about products is it? I don't think so. Making great things is and always will be relevant but the world has moved on I would argue that innovation is now much more than this.

With many 'commodity' products and services on the market the differentiation is often elsewhere, maybe in the way it is designed, built, delivered, serviced or in the business model used to connect with customers.

Shelly Lazarus ( chairman and CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide) recently stated that over 50% of the stock market value of corporations is now in intangibles. If correct, it raises the question of what role innovation plays in creating intangible value, beyond the product or service these firms sell?

I would argue Scott that rather than get bogged down in how the term “innovation” has been or is being used that it would be more useful to develop a more encompassing definition that better addresses the opportunities and challenges we face - economic, societal and environmental.

We need a new definition for a new era, and that definition needs to go beyond the product and encourage and enable us to see the scope for and innovate in every thing we do to create and deliver value, rather than just create the next SUV.

"innovation.....entirely overrated. It's a vague, subjective term "

as oppossed to "Making great things we love" which is far from a subjective sentence - not even a term!

I think the real discussion here is not about the true value of innovation, but on the definition one puts on the term innovation. same goes for quality. I think everyone agrees these things matter but dow do you define these?

Marco:

Fair point. Here's my argument: as vague as "great thing" is, it's more specific than innovation. We use the word innovation typically to mean one or more of the following:

1) Do something new and different
2) Do something better
3) Do something that wins

And we almost never stop to separate out what we mean and why what that word gets used.

At least "great thing" has better odds on focusing the conversation on one of these three elements (#2), and identifies a basis for comparison: is what we did before good? How can we make it better? What problems did it have? What opportunities are there? And on it goes.

But I'd argue that the key act is putting a team on a path where meaningful questions can be asked. Sure, saying the word innovation doesn't prevent it, but in my experience it sure lowers the odds even when compared to other subjective statements.

I find this article very interesting. I believe that businesses always benefits from a practical approach like this, because we should not focus on innovation and forget to make good things.

I also believe that in the mind of some people innovation means making good things, so maybe we are talking about the same thing.

One thing is true: today businesses can benefit by a systematic approach to either innovate or make good things.

Woolly reasoning. I do agree that great products well delivered can be perennial objects of desire - e.g. great furniture, master craftsman housebuilding, classic foods, good men's suits, etc. You just don't make the case convincingly with your examples. Apple, Pixar et al are incredibly innovative, albeit not at the fundamental concept but certainly at the product extension level.

"[Innovation is] not the most valuable part of their stories"

Exactly! The important and valuable is not about what they did, or even how. It's the why that really matters.

p.s. I read the Orwell piece-- great. Thanks for the link!

Wonderful! I have heard that the Balinese say, "We have no art. We just try to do everything as best we can."

Innovation is used more loosely today as innovation is directly related to gaining market share. It has become an added value concept.

Anything (process, improved or new product and services) that may impact the bottom-line and increase revenues is innovative to a business. A small change can be means to billions of dollars in profit.

However, innovation encompasses imagination, hard word and experimentation. As passion is to love, strong feeling about something; innovation is to new valuable ideas and giving those ideas a life through hard work, R&D...

A "good thing" is an innovation. Adding additional functionality, features etc. to a product that may help the consumer save money or benefit the environment... this is innovation as it has improved the value of the product to both the maker and the user.

Scott, great post. I think you really nailed it at the end. It's not the words we use, but the questions we ask.

Innovation and "good thing" are different?. Are we splitting hairs and stretching the words to undermine the value and essense of what innovation or innovative thinking produces. As I know it (So, I am told), creativity is the percursor to innovation. It represents a critical yet "intangible" element to the process becoming innovative. Hence, for me, being creative is far more important than the innovation that results. However, as much as it may seem, the business world would rather prefer relating to the more perceptual or "tangible" side of the paradigm in trems of products and services. The book Blue Ocean strategy has many stories of how value innovations have led companies beyond the boundaries of competition.

So, which is more important?. Can innovation prevail without creativity?. Do we have to have end in mind in this when we want to be innovative. Does innovation mean reinventing the wheel?.

Scott,
A very accurate and worthwhile perspective.

A further thought.
Apparent in my work is that effective "innovation" is virtually always accompanied by, or achieved by simplicity. If you simplify something, use of a product for a consumer, substitute a single product or service for several others for a consumer, flow of parts or information through a process, links between stages in a process that reduce abbiguity, and so on, the outcome usually becomes labelled as an "innovation"

Simplifying something is hard work, I like the quote by Byron (I think) "I wrote you a long letter because I did not have the time to write a short one". The hard work of simplifiaction is an outcome of leadership, and the resulting culture in an organisation. Organisations that have in their values statements (assuming they actually live them) a committment to "simplify" are in my expereince the most innovative.
The contrary is also true, without an overt effort to simplify, humans complicate, stifling innovation in the resulting fire-fighting that occurs.

Cheers

Allen Roberts

Scott, I beleive that innovation becomes useless when we are very delibrate abuot it. You need not try to be innovative to be an innovator. Innovation never follows a deliberate attempt, rather it just the need of the hour.

You've put this across very lively by mentioning "One telling anecdote in my research into innovation history is this striking observation: inventors, creators, and leaders, the people who earned fame for the work other people call innovative rarely used that word themselves." in your article.

Love to read it and an eye opener for the pseudo-innovators.

Back to Basics: Innovation as defined= invention + successful commercialisation.
Creating something to meet and exceed customer expectations- provide value that is more than the cost to the customer.
What is overrated is sloppy thinking on HBS blogs!

"Innovation" has acquired a daunting connotation and somehow seems to convey a very special set of initiatives to be undertaken by a special team with a specific set of objectives.
This is what makes innovation alienating to the majority of team on a business. It always seems to be someone else's work. As a result, it happens too infrequently.
True innovation can happen when one looks at the smallest of things around and finds a smarter way of doing it (and sometimes much beyond imagination).
If we make innovation an inclusive process and strip it off unnecessary baggage we will not only have more ideas coming from across functions and levels, it will also be richer in content because, say, the guy at the check-out counter of a super-market could be more hands on with an idea on smarter billing procedures than an Innovation Officer in his cubicle.

A culture which encourages, recognizes and shares smart little steps (a.k.a innovations) from across an organization, is most likely to be a fertile ground for fresh ideas which get translated into tangible measures.

Scott, I tend to agree with your points, and would like to add the following;

Innovation I classify with the word entreprenur.... starting or developing something that should/could give immense satisfaction and at most times involves some risk and a lot of ridicule before achieving the status of a great accomplishment. I correlate those words with "Potential" aka possibilites for future growth or greatness... these words are getting bounced around so much they sometimes lose their significance, when someone really wants to have a 'lightbulb moment' with some value thrown in for a tangible return for the organisation/person.

As a couple of others have pointed out, you seem to be differentiating innovation based on semantics and you definitely are confusing it with invention in parts of your blog post.

"These are all companies that figured out how to make really good, high quality, affordable things. None of these companies were the first in their field: Apple did not invent the cell-phone, nor the touchscreen. Google did not invent the search engine nor pay per click advertising. Pixar did not make the first motion picture. And even if they were the first, the world would not care. We care because they made things we love. Making good things people love is the true spine of these companies successes, and it's a stronger framework for managers to use when trying to learn from their examples."

Innovation is not invention.
Innovation does not require you to be first to market (BOFA keep the change for example)
Innovation is not just about products

But you could say..Innovation is a disciplined approach to creating great products/services.

Another point you made was ..

"The truth is making really good things is difficult -- it requires a commitment to craft, an attention to detail, and a love for work that has always been rare. And while we'd never call these three attributes innovations, it's the success of creating an organization that rewards these things that leads to the products we often herald, after they're done, as innovations. "

You are correct in that it doesn't matter what you call it while your are doing it. But with the definition above, you've really not describing anything specific or prescriptive. I would argue that just as management frameworks are the collection and systemization of practices already in the industry, innovation is the development of principles and frameworks of approaches to "making really good products/services" which are already in the industry.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the innovation approach is popular now. Industries who have already adopted management practices, TQM, Lean, Six Sigma and numerous others which have come out of the many business schools are now looking for the next discipline which will allow them to compete successfully in a global economy by making great products/services.

If you really want to get a better sense of the emergence of the innovation discipline from what used to be a diffused and fragmented process, I would recommend talking to companies like GravityTank, IDEO, Ziba, Jump or go visit the Institute of Design.

Sriam: I accept that you have specific definitions of these words that you believe in and think are useful, but I'm still convinced eliminating the word from a conversation altogether almost always improves the conversation.

For example, you offer:

"Innovation is a disciplined approach to creating great products/services."

Why not just say "We have a disciplined approach to creating new products/services"? The I-word, in this case, is superfluous. And its exactly this unnecessary use of the word that makes me scratch my head when people say phrases like "emergence of the innovation discipline...". Exactly how were new products made *before* this emergence occurred?

Regarding IDEO and GravityTank: hiring outside firms to redesign or invigorate a company is an old story, even older if you including advertising/branding agencies. The most notable thing I see that's new is the use of innovation and multidisciplinary work as key self-descriptions of the work they do.

I agree with Scott that Innovation is an overused word. However, it is not the word that is a problem, it is the system of ignoring intellectual output of people due to short term greed of making a load of money. It is about putting the cart before the horse, money before the great work. However, the great work requires innovative thinking or intellectual engagement of people. When the concepts of innovation have been fuzzy any body can call it anything. It is interesting that with so much resources available at large corporations and great universities, (the word 'great' could be overrated here), not much research has been reported on learning the process or science of innovation for creating higher intellectual output or new knowledge.

Instead of ignoring innovation, my recommendation is to commit resources on learning the science of innovation, and accelerating development of knew knowledge, products, services or solutions to make life safer, easier, better.

Having said that we all must try to do great things. I bet it will require innovation, i.e., something unique.

Praveen Gupta,
Editor, International Journal of Innovation Science
Author, Business Innovation in the 21st Century

Scott,

When used correctly, the word "Innovation" refers to a specific approach consisting of frameworks and principles used systematically within organizations. So dropping the word from usage would be missing the point.

For example, you could call Six Sigma - disciplined approach to creating better products. It's still correct, it just doesn't tell you anything.

I'm guessing that your main issue seems to be with ambiguous usage of the word innovation, but dropping the word completely is not the answer.

In your last paragraph, you said:

"Regarding IDEO and GravityTank: hiring outside firms to redesign or invigorate a company is an old story, even older if you including advertising/branding agencies."

I'm not sure what you are trying to say above. Consulting companies often are the first to create services around new approaches to business (remember McKinsey & Co.). If you are opposed to consulting companies, you could read more about Target's Innovation Group, or what P&G has done for a long time to understand their disciplined approach to innovation. Or you could look at graduate institutions like the Institute of Design, Stanford D.School to learn more about innovation frameworks and principles.

I am impressed. you hit the nail on the head.keep it up.

Sriam wrote:

> When used correctly, the word "Innovation" refers to
> a specific approach consisting of frameworks and principles
> used systematically within organizations. So dropping the
> word from usage would be missing the point.

The last thing I can say here is that unless you've checked a dictionary lately, it's arrogant to tell me that there is a singular definition of the word that is correct. The definition you offer is a very recent, and to my point, a mostly distracting use of the word.

Let me put this another way. Would you call Edison an innovator? Ford? Howard Hughes? Henry Dreyfuss? None of those people would use the definition you've offered, and that's my point. Somehow these people and companies managed to innovate without any of the concepts/language you've mentioned. How did they do it without hiring IDEO? Or using "innovation frameworks" or other terms invented in the last 15 years?

Strip this blog post down to it's core and that's my point. There is something deeper going on when companies have success with new ideas, and most of what gets described as "innovation processes" today strike me as entirely shallow and frequently distracting. Agree or disagree, but that's my point.

> When used correctly, the word "Innovation" refers
> to a specific approach consisting of frameworks and
> principles used systematically within organizations.

Really? So if I create something completely new, but do it without frameworks and principles used systematically, then it's not innovation?

Sorry, but you don't get to redefine the word for me like that.

The problem with having an "innovation team" or "innovation framework" is that it epitomizes management faddishness. People quickly learn to describe whatever it is they're already doing in terms of innovation -- as defined by the framework, of course. Then when management fixates on risk, people will keep doing the same things and describing them in terms of risk mitigation.

Innovation is a sometimes-useful objective that is of no value to the customer. It can't be a top-level corporate goal.

I'm going to call bullshit on the article.

Innovation is massively important, even if people use some other term to describe it. Indeed, innovation is leadership, something HBS supposedly prides itself on.

There were cell phones before the iPhone, but not full web browsers in a handheld. I mean, why would anyone pay money for anything if it's not better than what they already own?

I tend to think of "innovation" as making a product or service better but I suppose you could innovate new ways to make things worse.

As an earlier poster (Mr. Roberts) said, innovation is often closely linked to simplicity. Taking a service or process and simplifying it, making it easier to use, might be considered a form of innovation.

Sometimes a company is just in the right place at the right time though -- pursuing the right idea (MySpace vs. Friendster). In these situations, little innovation is needed to achieve success, just a drive to continue forward with the idea.

Great article, thanks.

Is Scott saying anything else than the obvious? If his message is to focus on the real problem to solve, then it provides a perfect basis for any innovation effort, not a substitute to such effort. In doing so, Scott overlooks the creativity dimension of innovation. In fact his comments suggest that he may have a strong preference for the development type of thinking. In the innovation management practice, we know that we need developers who are defined as those who can improve on preliminary solutions or ideas to turn them into effective solutions. And we also know that we need problem clarifyers and ideators, upstream of development, as well as implementors downstream...An innovation is not just a good design, it is a useful, novel solution that sticks on the ground. At the end is Scott only saying that developers are at the core of innovation? Why not. Another view is that innovation is the product of a successful interaction between diverse perspectives and thinking skills.

How many times has anyone had a close to perfect product or company experience - for me almost never. I can usually think of numerous ways a situation can be improved. Try to make me raving fan - It is not necessarily "innovation" that is distracting them - but just not constantly checking and improving.

This really just a question of wording!

What do company mean when they say innovation?

I agree when you say that what it really should mean Making great thing for a business it will be added " great thing that bring something new to the customer!!

Scott,

Totally agree. Innovation is all about developing something of value. And the only, and I mean the ONLY, way of developing something of value is ensuring that you actually have a problem that is worth solving. If its not a problem, then there is no need for a solution.

So with that in mind, the common practice of getting groups of people in a room to brainstorm wildly hoping they'll come up with something of value is lunacy. And one thing's for sure, it is definitely not innovation.

Why on earth organisations have this dangerous addiction to focusing on developing ideas, brainstorming and idea festivals/competitions is beyond me.

While they may have some HR benefit, if innovation is about creating great things - things of value - and that create value for customers, stakeholders and shareholders, then innovation means an awful lot more than just ideas and invention.

You couldn't be more wrong. The word "innovation" may be overused, or used inappropriately, or overloaded with connotation and meaning that it doesn't really have, but it would be very difficult to overrate it. There is no growth without innovation, and since growth is what most organizations and certainly all public companies and investors seek, it's hard to imagine anything more important in business.

Innovation is simply the creation of something new. If you object to someone picking any single definition, survey them all: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+innovation&btnG=Google+Search. The only common thread among them is the creation of something new or novel.

There is no implication of magnitude of newness (a new button on your cellphone that turns on a light qualifies, as does wrapping my newspaper in plastic so it doesn't get wet, as does a new flavor of ice cream, or a new scent or color in your shampoo, etc.). It doesn't mean you were first. Or best. Nor does it carry any baggage about utility or usefulness. It doesn't have to be an iPhone, or the first computer, or the invention of electricity. Lots of innovations are thought to be cool by their inventors, but trite and useless by the marketplace. They disappear with barely a whisper.

And by extension, that further implies that an innovation doesn't have to be successful, whether a product, a service or a business model. For that matter, an internal process which enables efficiencies that significantly drop the cost of something without any apparent change to the product itself is a noble innovation, especially if the reduced cost increases the utility of the product to its user.

However, in order to differentiate or create products which cater to unmet or under-served needs, there is no alternative but to innovate. And, this is the source of all customer value and all market growth.

In fact, this is the reason everyone wants to say they are doing innovation, and preferably disruptive innovation which creates new categories and new industry leaders. As an ex-Microsoftie, you more than anyone should realize that the core reason for the stall in MSFT stock price is that the company has ceased to be a disruptor in any markets, and has fallen back to simple "blue chip" status and sustaining innovation. Still, with no innovation at all, MSFT would be in free fall, because there'd be no growth and soon enough, no ability to compete.

And it's crazy to say that because customers don't say "we want more innovation" that they don't value it. Customers certainly value the greatly improved quality and safety of cars over the last 20 years, but they didn't ask manufacturers to install the robots or make the specific design changes which had a dramatic impact on both of these attributes. I'm not even sure that customers explicitly asked for cars to be safer, or that they would have articulated that as a priority. You are right to say, however, that customers want problems solved. But tell me, how do you solve a customer problem without innovating on some dimension?

You are innovating now by self-promotion and connecting with your book-buying business audience through blogging at HBR. That's a marketing innovation. Does it mean you are marketing better, or that the medium itself is an improvement over anything that came before it? Not necessarily, but it certainly means your costs are lower, and that you have the opportunity to talk to a qualified audience that was beyond reach before, and that's definitely an improvement. The rest depends on how you use the medium to create value -- just like any other innovation.

I hope your future posts are better reasoned and not dependent on fuzzy definitions that change in scope and implication in every other sentence.

Hi Paul - thanks for the comment.

> You couldn't be more wrong.

Actually, I'm sure that i could be - I could have said Pixar invented motion pictures, or that Apple makes toaster ovens - there are an infinite number of comments more wrong than what I wrote.

> There is no growth without innovation, and since growth
> is what most organizations and certainly all public companies > and investors seek, it's hard to imagine anything more
> important in business.

I think sustainability is more important in business. Public companies and investors are obsessed with short term results, and obsession with short term results does not guarantee long term success. And about growth without innovation: smart companies can grow by refocusing their product lines, eliminating overhead, and simplifying their objectives, none of which I'd describe as innovative: those are basic tactics from any MBA or business strategy playbook from the last 20 years.

> There is no implication of magnitude of newness
> (a new button on your cellphone that turns on a light
> qualifies, as does wrapping my newspaper in plastic so it
> doesn't get wet, as does a new flavor of ice cream, or a
> new scent or color in your shampoo, etc.)

That may be your definition, which you are entitled to - but it's certainly not mine. As you define it there are few decisions made that *do not* qualify as innovations, which makes the word meaningless. What isn't an innovation by your definition?

Regarding my post - lets both forget semantics and definitions for a moment - my point in the post was that goodness and greatness are what everyone should be seeking and studying. Google, Pixar and Apple should be exemplars of excellence, of making great products, and that can be done without breakthrough ideas or radical this or gamechanging that. If i could pick one nugget that seems most overlooked by this post, that would be it. Is my point banal? Maybe, but it's a reasonable point nonetheless.

An innovation is not a guarantee of excellence. In fact the first makers of most products, the people most deserving of the title inventor or creator of things like light-bulbs (Swan, not Edison), personal computers (Berkeley, not Jobs), automobiles (Duryea, not Ford), mostly fail at their attempts to make great products. The willingness to experiment with a new idea is one thing, the ability to convert that idea into a great product is another (and to profit from it, yet a third). Both are often thrown together but they are different skills, and I'm calling for greater emphasis on the later. That we should return our focus to the challenges of making great things, and avoid the distractions of how "new", "innovative", "inventive", "cool" or a thousand other trendy adjectives that true inventors almost never use.

> You are innovating now by self-promotion and connecting with
> your book-buying business audience through blogging at HBR.
> That's a marketing innovation.

I think you're making my point with this comment - if it were 2001 I might agree with you, but to say an author in 2008 is doing anything notable by blogging is ridiculous. It's status quo for my trade. It might be an innovation in a historic sense, that yes, at one time it was new to the field, but all man made things qualify by that definition, and if we include them all in the present the word isn't useful for much.

Much more importantly, who cares if I'm an innovator or not, or whether what I'm doing is innovative - is what I'm writing any good? Is it worth reading? Those are the important questions. I realize you think not, which is fine, but that's a much more productive conversation to have: Does Scott write valuable things? rather than Is Scott an innovator? Both are subjective, sure, but the former is much easier to work with and discuss as two rational people than the later.

> But tell me, how do you solve a customer problem without
> innovating on some dimension?

If my customer says my cars need seatbelts and I add a seatbelt I am not an innovator. I am taking an existing idea that's been proven by others and adding it to my product. If selt belts exist in other cars, and I'm the last manufacture to do it, then it's not an innovation for the car industry either. I'd be a laggard, not a progressive.

On the whole I avoid the word innovation as much as possible. The turmoil and empty arguing on this 30+ comment thread is further evidence to me that avoiding the word innovation is a good first step to real discourse. The less the word gets used the higher the odds a meaningful conversation will happen and this comment thread reinforces that notion.

I do not entirely understand why people are so defensive of the word innovation and sensitive to it being questioned.

There's an obvious answer to that last question, Scott. Some of them are defensive about it because they're "in the innovation management practice".

Semantics! From a motivational speaker? Wow!

The reason the pioneers of the industrial revolution wouldn't have used the word innovation: They were hard-nosed business men, in automation's infancy, and above all else problem solving no BS type of guys.

It all boils down to dollars...R&D=Products=Marketing=Sales. We are talking about viable goods here, right? Not one hit wonders that don't withstand the test of time.

In 21st century terms = innovation = success