Innovation Questions and Answers

What is open innovation?

Open innovation is a term championed by Henry Chesbrough, professor at the Center for Open Innovation, at the Haas School of Business (University of California), ¹ in his 'Open Innovation' book, although the term, open innovation, has been used since the 60s. Open Innovation (OI) describes how companies allow both inward and outward flows of knowledge and influence between themselves, other companies and/or education facilities to improve innovation. This method helps in many ways, such as helping saving/controlling costs of R&D (shared resources for example), finding new technologies/ideas, access to new markets and improving speed of innovation as a whole. Our nutshell explanation is this - "no one is as smart as everybody".

Here's Henry Chesbrough himself talking about Open Innovation.

And another excellent video on the topic of open innovation from Henry Chesbrough.

How do you implement open innovation?

Perhaps the most difficult question to answer in this short format, but adopting and implementing open innovation can be done in several ways, depending on cultures of parties involved. One way is to use external OI experts who work together with the parties involved (or even scouting and suggesting other parties) using processes and frameworks that have been known to work successfully in building collaborations. The external experts then remove themselves, allowing the companies to work close together in a way that suits all parties.

External experts are not always needed, especially when passion and commitment for innovation is matched by two or more parties, in which case successful collaborations can occur in all shapes and sizes. For any form of OI structure to succeed, communication channels and resource sharing have to be simple, easy and egalitarian before innovation can truly take hold and gain long-term success. Leadership of both companies must endeavour to fully support any cross-business OI infrastructure for success also.

What scientific and technological innovations propelled the industrial revolution?

Just some of the technological innovations and advances of the industrial revolution included James Watt's steam engine which allowed factories to be located anywhere, not just next to rivers (for water power). This led to steamboats and transatlantic travel and further down the line, electric motor and diesel engine, from which the motor industry was born.The telegraph, invented by Samuel Morse in 1836, allowed messages to travel distances unheard of previously which led, some 30 years later, to the invention of the transatlantic cable (Cyrus Field) and ten years after that, the first telephone call was made by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876.

Various other innovations and inventions of the Industrial Revolution included the cotton gin (Eli Whitney), the sewing machine (Elias Howe) and Edison's work with electricity that allowed for the creation of the light bulb.

How is innovation used as a tool by entrepreneurs?

Innovation goes hand-in-hand with entrepreneurship. Finding new ideas, pioneering the landscape for opportunities - successful entrepreneurs are generally very innovative. Entrepreneurs usually work long hours, and a proportion of that must be on innovation, otherwise work for them would be no fun and they would not continue to grow - which is the whole point (to many) of being an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs (like innovators) see things differently, much less 'black and white' than most people do and when others give up, this is when they start to really get to work - usually on many things at a time. Add to this the entrepreneur's embrace of fear, constantly adjusting and improving solutions before they break and you can see how entrepreneurs and innovators, especially at the top-end are very similar in many ways.

How do you improve creativity and innovation skills?

You can become more creative by...creating things. Creating things every day is a sure way to increase different ideas. Different ideas will allow you to create more new things. When you regularly create things, and have many ideas because of it, you see gaps, you see how things could work together, you see that "if x was applied to y, then z will be created" - and this, we would say, is innovation.

Now, if you do not apply vigor, indeed devotion to creating new, varied things each day, then your ideas may become very stale very quickly, leading you to become bored and never getting to the stage of thinking of truly innovative solutions. Much in the same way that if you don't apply devotion, if you don't apply fun to your work, your ideas, creations, creativity and indeed innovative thoughts will suffer, as having fun with colleagues and friends, allowing honest comments to travel back and forth about your ideas will stimulate new ideas, new creativity and new, innovating solutions.

Waiting for perfection is also a huge danger to creative and innovation success and is perhaps the number one reason that companies abandon innovation or research work. Throw caution to the wind when it comes to releasing products or service ideas and prototypes to your colleagues and friends, don't wait until you think that they are perfect - who knows what ideas they will have about features or imperfections that could completely change the course of history?

Fostering creativity and innovation in the workplace.

What fosters innovation?

There are five ingredients that foster innovation according to a PwC survey, which are: the right organisational culture, strong business leadership, creativity, willingness to adapt and the ability to capture ideas. We have to agree with the inclusion of each of these elements and unbeknown to us, are probably the reasons that we have created HiveMind and croissant, our platforms for greater company innovation.

How Google's 20 Percent Time Fosters Innovation

How have technological innovations contributed to a shrinking world?

Simply put, every technological innovation that has helped nodes in the network that is the world's population to communicate more effectively with each other has contributed to a shrinking world. Make no mistake, every person alive today is part of the network of human beings. We are just as much of a network as an ant colony in Ethiopia is, as are the stars that form the Milky Way. As this network of humans has been able to communicate more clearly and frequently over time, delivering larger and larger amounts of information in less and less time, it has caused what we consider to be a shrinking world. Such innovations to have improved connectivity between nodes include both hardware and software, from satellites to fibre optic cables to Facebook to video compression algorithms and myriad others.

Who would you benchmark for technological innovations?

According to Forbes, the most innovative companies in the world are: Tesla Motors, Salesforce.com, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Incyte, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Under Armour, Monster Beverage, Unilever Indonesia, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, BioMarin Pharmaceutical, Amazon.com, ARM Holdings, Naver, FleetCor Technologies, Netflix, Shanghai RAAS Blood Products, Rakuten, Asian Paints, LG Household & Health Care, Verisk Analytics, Amorepacific, Coloplast, Marriott International, Illumina, Red Hat, AmerisourceBergen, Visa, Sysmex, Baidu, Mastercard, Hindustan Unilever, Hermès International, TransDigm Group, Perrigo, The Priceline Group, Adobe Systems, Cerner, Ulta Salon Cosmetcs & Fragrance, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Almarai, Fast Retailing, Starbucks, Unicharm, Sirius XM Radio, Iliad, Magnit, Autodesk, Tencent Holdings, BesTV New Media, Lindt & Sprungli, Reckitt Benckiser Group, Cielo, Ctrip.com International, Mead Johnson Nutrition, Shimano, Kone, Dassault Systemes, Expedia, ProSiebenSat1 Media, Brown-Forman, SBA Communications, Essilor International, Allergan, Keyence, Oriental Land, Tata Consultancy Services, Intuitive Surgical, Fastenal, Roper Industries, Smith & Nephew, Experian, Colgate-Palmolive, Sun Pharma Industries, Acuity Brands, Molson Coors Brewing, Fanuc, Inditex, Luxottica Group, SABMiller, CR Bard, General Mills, Novozymes, Edwards Lifesciences, Equifax, Geberit, Capita, Falabella, Liberty Global, Larsen & Toubro, Assa Abloy, Hikvision, Constellation Brands, Coca-Cola, Omnicom Group, Paychex, Starwood Hotels, ITV, Church & Dwight, Grifols and AVIC Aviation Engine.

What is crowdsourcing innovation?

Crowdsourcing innovation is the idea of harnessing the power of the collective and the wisdom of crowds to produce and highlight innovation breakthroughs.

It's a relatively new strategy in innovation circles. By effectively utilising a crowdsourcing model within a company, projects can be worked into micro tasks that can be distributed easily to the "crowd". Analysing a large number of user experiences and strategically deciding which problems should first be tended to and resolved to benefit the greatest number of community members is the aim. This provides companies with value whilst also (almost) effortlessly collecting information. Alternatively, businesses understanding that not all the best employees work for them (unless you're Google of course), means that having other's views, much like open innovation, but in larger number, to help direct innovation activity can rapidly resolve issues and solve problems.

Open Innovation And Crowdsourcing from Leeds Business School

How do you encourage innovation in a company?

To successfully encourage innovation in a company, ensure that employees are aware that they share responsibility for innovation, and reward their efforts. This will go a long way in making everybody feel involved in the business' progression and encourage all employees to think creatively. Celebrating success and spurring experimentation by not penalising people whose ideas 'fail' can create a supportive atmosphere in which expression of employee's ideas can be acknowledged without risk of criticism or ridicule. Sharing good ideas and knowledge across the whole business by way of intranet and newsletters will help with openness between individuals/teams and encourage improved innovative ideas.

Encouraging innovation and creativity by Sarah Miller Caldicott

What is innovation culture?

Some businesses produce regular innovative ideas that help with new and improved products and services, which is usually down to a great innovation culture within. Some companies, however, struggle and create very few innovations at all, with bureaucracy, among other corporate ‘illnesses’ such as lack of teamwork, getting in the way of innovation success. It is crucial that employee and company values, language and behaviours are aligned for an innovation culture to begin to flourish. Read this excellent article about building a culture of Innovation on Forbes.

Where does innovation come from?

I can only talk from my own experience, but for me, innovation comes from looking at things differently - on purpose. Each venture that I have entered into, I have purposely tried to not learn how the industry ‘is’. Innovative ideas also come from watching others make errors over and over, the history of those errors and why they originally happened, then identifying that they are problems that can and should to be fixed. From this, focusing on the problem with absolute discipline for extended periods of time, with gracious patience - and the perseverance of thought that another solution is possible. For me, this is where innovation comes from.

Steve Tobak writes perhaps the best explanation of this in his superb article, Where Does Innovation Come From? One should read about thought experiments² which can help to create an innovative mindset.

Why is innovation so important to an organisation?

Confidence and self assurance is gained when companies attempt to become more innovative and have early successes - so this is why innovation is so important. When a company gains confidence, it tries new things and is less worried about so-called failures. Businesses with confidence also abandon things that may get in the way of an innovation culture, such as bureaucracy and management who are mainly interested only in protecting their own roles within the business.

The courage, confidence and self-assurance gained from challenging an industry, or indeed, internal mechanisms and procedures using innovative behaviours can become exhilarating and addictive - and breath life and breed success throughout a whole company.

What is the Importance of Innovation in Business by Josef Martens

What is disruptive innovation?

Firstly, disruptive innovation is an overused phrase, with many that use it not actually understanding the real meaning at all. Disruption itself, means ‘disturbance or problems which interrupt an event, activity, or process’ - and this is where the meaning of disruptive innovation is mistaken by those who have created a better version of a product or service. This is not disruption, but merely innovation.

Disruptive innovation could be the creation of a whole new kind of product or service that hadn't previously existed, and has created a whole new user base. A good example would be Apple's iPhone. The phone itself didn't disrupt the market, but the creation of an easy to use 'app store', where users and developers alike had a clear, simple understanding of how to connect with each other, helped to create an internet and software experience (via applications as well as the browser) that rivalled that of laptops and computers, which had never happened before.

Clayton M Christensen³ originally coined the term and wrote an excellent guide to disruptive innovation some 20 years after he originally used it.

Clay Christensen, Harvard Business School professor explains disruptive innovation.

What is social innovation?

When a social problem is resolved or fixed by a novel solution, with the result benefiting society, rather than a business or an individual, this would be deemed as a social innovation. Social innovations have happened with things such as working conditions for the low paid, health of the poor and education of the underprivileged. When government correctly uses the help of the private sector with a clear, defined path of goals, many social innovations can occur. Not only government, but the third sector (nonprofit) and also for-profit sectors can and have aided with social innovation projects alone or indeed together.

Recent, high-profile examples of innovative social projects include microfinance, emissions trading and fair trade.

Excellent video explaining social innovation

How do technological innovations build on one another?

A good example of technological innovations building on each other is the hot air balloon and what came afterwards. Whilst in itself, the hot air balloon was no conventional way to travel, it proved that humans could fly. This innovation alone sparked technological innovations that are still developing today in our journeys to space. The fact that we could travel in the air inspired humans to develop improved flight-oriented vehicles, leading to gliders, bi-planes, helicopters and planes that could transport excessive weights and hundreds of people to different parts of the globe. Technological innovations breed further creativity and innovation because humans want to improve things that are exciting, useful and bountiful.

What innovations made exploration possible?

In the age of exploration by sea, especially, key innovations were Caravel ships, Galleons from the 16th century, the Astrolabe, first used at sea by the Portuguese, which measured the angle of the sun to find latitude, the magnetic compass, cross staff (another tool to find latitude), traverse board, and the quadrant to name a few key exploration innovations that helped form the world we live in today.

What innovation changed the textile industry?

Key innovations in the textile industry include the flying shuttle, which doubled the production of cloth at the time of its inception. Other textile innovations were the spinning jenny, invented by James Hargreaves, Richard Arkwright's water frame - the two inventions combined by Samuel Crompton were known as Crompton's Mule. Later on, the power loom was fashioned as innovation took hold within the industry, with perhaps the greatest of all innovations in the world of textiles being the Jacquard Loom, using a form of punch card.

Here is a great information page about innovations of the Industrial Revolution.

What is the definition of innovation?

There are so many definitions of what innovation is. Ask 10 experts and you'll get 14 answers for an innovation definition. I've listed many that I have found on the web here:

• Innovation is a scientific approach for finding newer better ideas and solutions to problems, which make life easier and simpler to live!
• The implementation of new processes, products, organizational changes or marketing changes
• New ideas and concepts not just current technology with a different paint job.
• An environment/culture that embraces positive change, creativity and continuous improvement
• The act of introducing something new
• Innovation is seeing things differently. Implementing innovation is getting others to, also
• Research and development, new intellectual property (IP), and inventions
• A new idea, method or device
• Staying ahead in the market and being a market leader
• Innovation is making changes in existing systems that produces a more efficient or effective outcome
• Innovation is creativity with a job to do
• Solutions that benefit society and societal outcomes (including environmental outcomes)
• The ability to deliver new value to a customer
• Reorganize the particles [pieces] with new added components that shift the value to new business opportunities.
• Innovation is most often defined as a good idea that has a favorable economic outcome - in other words, you know it when you sell it.
• Innovation is the process that transforms ideas into commercial value
• Innovation results when a new approach is applied to an old problem that makes lasting and far-reaching changes in behavior
• A change in a product offering, service, business model or operations which meaningfully improves the experience of a large number of stakeholders - Hutch Carpenter's Definition of Innovation.

At Innovation Company, we think of innovation strategies (for businesses) as two stages:

• firstly, being or becoming relevant to the marketplace
• secondly, innovating from the platform of marketplace relevance

Which essentially means that for companies, innovation means staying ahead of being relevant. We say this because innovating from a position of non-relevance in a sector is fraught with great difficulty, from building connections to promote your innovations, to applying innovations to already happy customers, which you may not have if you are not relevant in the marketplace.

You may say that this is not an exact explanation of innovation, which is correct, but for the companies that we consult to, understanding that they are, or are not relevant to the marketplace is a very big consideration, and helps the company to decide all future actions that should be taken.

What we are definitive about when it comes to a definition for innovation, is that companies need innovation behaviours across the business, which then can form the basis of an innovation strategy. So many companies create an innovation strategy that goes nowhere because innovation behaviours are not in place across all departments within the company.

How do you measure innovation results and outcomes?

When innovating, you could be looking to disrupt a market, or incrementally making your own products/services/operations better. With disruptive innovation, such as Airbnb, where a new service altogether disrupts an age-old service, outcomes and results can be easily measured by how successful the company is, how much money it makes, pays out to shareholders etc, but with incremental innovation, it can be extremely hard to show how much of the success of a product/service or company overall has been made from the innovation itself.

In one example of our own, by creating an innovation culture, we helped a company to hugely raise income and grow from 31 people to 72 people within 18 months, but to pinpoint exactly how much of this was down to the creation of an innovation culture is extremely hard to do.

However, measures can be taken to capture at least some of the value of the innovation changes. One of those could be each salesperson honestly attributing the percentage of innovation changes in product or services that helped with each sale. Not an exact science, of course. Staff increases in a company where innovation changes are at least 50% responsible for each new hire is a way to show how well a company is innovating, which is the method that we have used with clients in the past.

Keeping very close communication with company owners, who are ultimately responsible for signing the cheques and paying for new staff is paramount in holistically measuring the impact of innovation, asking, for each new major decision, whether recent innovation success was part of the decision.

What is the difference between an invention and an innovation?

One definition is "An invention is a new idea or a new discovery while an innovation is an improvement over the existing discoveries". Lisa Leskovec writes that "an invention creates creates an ability (via a device, substance, method or process) while an innovation focuses on how you can apply this ability and refine it" in her excellent LinkedIn Pulse article, What is the difference between an invention and an innovation?

What is the difference between creativity and innovation?

Creativity and innovation boils down to focus and purpose. Innovation is more of a measurable entity than creativity and is evaluated by calculating work required against the validity of an idea. Creativity consists of conceiving a viable idea that may lead to a physical improvement or an intellectual concept that would further success. The two work symbiotically to achieve greater success, applying to one another to form ideas that can then be implemented to fruition. Innovation can be closely monitored and adapted to needs, whereas creativity is subjective and largely incalculable.

What is diffusion of innovation?

Originally coined by Everett Rogers, a Professor, in his book, "Diffusion of Innovations" (1962), diffusion is the theory that markets have customers who differ in their willingness and readiness to adopt a new service or product. There are three ways, according to Rogers, that decisions are taken - optional, collective and authority. You may have heard the term, 'early adopters', which is just one category of the population, with the others being innovators, early majority, late majority and laggards. All of these groups accept innovations at different rates. There is an excellent document, Diffusion of Innovation Theory at the Communication Theory website.

Why is creativity and innovation so important for entrepreneurs?

Entrepreneurs strive to create greater opportunities and in the economic world. They are leading bodies in economic development. Creativity furthers innovation. Entrepreneurs, known for hard work and long hours, are some of the best problem solvers because of this mix of work ethic and creativity. Risk taking plays an important role in an entrepreneur's success. Thinking the unthinkable and daring to push boundaries may lead to developing niches that helps businesses to thrive. Being creative can be as conventional as noticing a pattern of success and adapting that pattern to fit in a completely different environment. This can produce massive benefits for customers. Creativity and innovation go hand in hand to promote entrepreneurial success and induce a competitive advantage.

Why do employees fear technological innovations?

People often feel anxious about anything new, and typically thoughts will centre around how the technology will affect them and their role - and their relationship with others in the business. Understanding why people have a fear of technical innovation is crucial for managers to understand, so that it may be overcome in the shortest possible time frame. Providing employees with as much information as possible about the fears helps reduce this. Employees fear the unknown, be that with any kind of innovation.

What are the benefits of a culture that encourages creativity and innovation?

Generally, company cultures that encourage innovation and creativity have better signs of teamwork and relationships between staff, lots of engagement when new projects are launched, retention of staff greatly increases and people within a sector want to work for this kind of company. This is largely due to staff morale being high and staff talking of the great place that they work at when networking and generally speaking with friends and contacts. All of this leads to an increase of something crucial - problem solving becomes the norm, and so productivity increases, meaning not only a happy workforce, but a happy, profitable business. Who wouldn't want to work in a company like that?

What is the definition of innovation adoption?

Innovation adoption - usually defined and explained by the Rogers Adoption / Innovation Curve is a model that categorises adopters of innovations, as some people are more frightened or wary of change than others. Shown as a bell curve in graphical form, the graph is split into the following groups - innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards .

How does leadership affect innovation?

Without input, and indeed inertia from leaders within company, innovation can be dead in the water. Even though most executives know that innovation is key to business growth, yet most are disappointed with their ability to stimulate an innovation culture. This is usually because of a lack of knowing "where to start", because there is no formulaic, one-size-fits-all innovation plan. But one thing is common knowledge - that culture is the most important driver of innovation.

So, how does leadership affect innovation - by building a culture that rewards and recognises creativity. But leaving it to others to "come up with the ideas" does not guarantee success. Leadership of a company has to play a key role in generating fervor among employees to try new things, to not fear failure and to not only ever reward short-term financial successes as signs of success.

There is an excellent article on the McKinsey site, entitled Leadership and Innovation that delves into this in greater detail.

Who defined innovation?

Innovation, when first used, was an accusation, rather than the complementary term that it is today. The word itself is derived from invention and imitation with the 'novation' suffix first used in the 1200s, loosely relating to the renewal of contracts. By the 1500s innovation had become a particularly negative word, but by the 1800s, mainly because of the industrial revolution, it took on a much more positive spin, but still related largely to inventions, rather than true innovations. In 1939, Joseph Schumpeter⁴, an Austrian-born American economist, redefined innovation to be what we know it as today. Benoit Godin⁵ is a true expert of the history of innovation and we recommend all of his work.

Why is innovation important for small businesses?

Rather than being important, we'd class innovation as vital for small businesses, especially startups. Most startups would not get off the ground without an innovative entrepreneur at the helm - and certainly not last the pace. People that find it difficult to work in the corporate world have to innovate as a stable salary is not as easy in a startup as it is at a larger, more established business. Innovation helps to create that stable salary while at a smaller company.

Small businesses can easily be affected by a larger competitor releasing an upgraded product or new service that competes, so innovation should always be happening to avoid those situations before - not after - they arise.

What is product innovation?

Product innovation⁶ could involve the creation of a whole new product, quality improvements or use of new materials to improve efficiency or effectiveness of a product. Introducing a reworked, new or redesigned product to the marketplace, as well as its initial development would be the container of a product innovation project.

What is innovation management?

As explained in answers on this page, definitions of innovation differ between people. Because of this, processes and procedures around innovation in a company should be managed and be aligned - from the creation of an idea in a brainstorming session, to how it is then developed and then implemented and taken to market, should it be a product or service offering. Innovation management takes control of each stage of the process of the innovation strategy set by a company.

What is marketing innovation?

Marketing innovation is a term that many understand incorrectly, often thinking that an improved marketing campaign is being more innovative than before. Marketing innovation to us, is to better address needs of prospects and customers or indeed creating offerings to markets that don’t yet exist in ways that have not been used before - all with the objective of increasing business of course. In the vast majority of companies, marketing follows very tried and tested (i.e. safe) methods, when it is the opposite that can often reap huge rewards.

Being innovative with marketing is not to be reckless, but to be daring, candid, informative, personable, 'go-giving' or a combination.

Why is innovation difficult?

Firstly, innovation means different things to different people, so starting from that footing, innovation within a company is always going to be hard until innovation is defined within that organisation. Add to the fact that ‘innovation thinking’ is not natural for most people, with human beings typically liking to confirm what we already know, making it hard to challenge existing ideas. Add the western fallacy of thinking that failure is wrong during your formative years in education and you can see how innovation can be deemed hard to do by most business owners. Being smart is not avoiding failure, which is a terrible thing that we are taught in school, which leads to people afraid of failures - even minor failures - in their job roles.

So, to summarise, innovation is difficult to get moving in a business because it is rarely defined correctly by people in a group, innovative thinking is not a natural way for most humans to behave, and education has taught people that failure is wrong.

Why is innovation an important entrepreneurship activity?

Entrepreneurs are innovators of the economy. It is not only academia that is responsible for solutions to problems. Innovative entrepreneurship helps keeps the economy growing, and in doing so, meets the constantly changing needs of the marketplace. This creates more business and leads to further needs that require solutions.

How do you drive innovation culture?

Firstly, leaders have to allow for innovation to happen - by allowing risk taking and failure to become acceptable and encouraged. Allowing for time and space to innovate, whether that be small groups working on ideas off-site or allowing small percentages of time for people to work on their own projects. Good examples of this include Google and 3M. Lack of frequent communication is often the death knell of an innovation culture - usually because people do not want to report failures, which should be celebrated, rather than shunned, in many cases. Leaders mentioning innovation updates in every meeting is a good way to stifle a culture of fearing failure. ‘Just doing it’ is such an important part of helping an innovation culture succeed.

When others see someone trying (whether failing or succeeding) to create innovative products and services, it helps them to generate and act upon their own ideas - some of which may have been dormant for years. Just do it!

Where is innovation needed?

Easy. Everywhere - until we've solved all of the world's problems.

What innovation allowed Henry Ford to make cars available to Americans for a lower cost?

The assembly line made work so much more faster for those building cars for Henry Ford, that he was able to sell cars at a much lower price.

What are the best quotes about innovation?

Very subjective of course, but here's a list of our favourite innovation quotes:

• "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." - Steve Jobs
• "Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change." - Brene brown
• "Throughout history, people with new ideas - who think differently and try to change things - have always been called troublemakers." - Richelle Mead
• "If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old." - Peter F. Drucker
• "Innovation is taking two things that already exist and putting them together in a new way." - Tom Freston
• "What good is an idea if it remains an idea? Try. Experiment. Iterate. Fail. Try again. Change the world." - Simon Sinek
• "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." - Maya Angelou
• "The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new." - Socrates
• "Exploration is the engine that drives innovation. Innovation drives economic growth. So let's all go exploring." - Edith Widder
• "The heart and soul of the company is creativity and innovation." - Bob Iger
• "We have a strategic plan, it's called doing things." - Herb Kelleher
• "If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative." - Woody Allen
• "If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got." - Attributed to many including Albert Einstein
• "Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them." - Alfred North Whitehead
• "The stone age didn't end because they ran out of stones." - Unknown
• "There has been opposition to every innovation in the history of man, with the possible exception of the sword." - Benjamin Dana
• "I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." - John Cage
• "In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman." - David Ogilvy
• "Never innovate to compete, innovate to change the rules of the game." - David O. Adeife
• "Anyone can look for fashion in a boutique or history in a museum. The creative explorer looks for history in a hardware store and fashion in an airport." - Robert Wieder
• "Manage the company you're in now and the one that you're becoming." - Tony Robbins

What are the types of innovation?

Geoffrey A. Moore, in his book, "Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution", defines innovation types as:

• Disruptive
• Application
• Adoption
• Product
• Platform
• Line-extension
• Enhancement
• Marketing
• Experiential
• Value-engineering
• Integration
• Process
• Value-migration
• Organic
• Acquisition

Of course, there are several innovation frameworks, but Innovation Company likes to keep it simple and tends to focus on two innovation types - disruption and incremental

Where can I find innovations and innovative ideas?

This list of excellent sources of innovation was originally found on the excellent blog post, "100+ sources that every innovation professional should know" over at the most excellent Board of Innovation website, but has been modernised as of April 2017, with sites that are no longer around, or no longer posting omitted.

• QZ.com
• Springwise.com
• Fast Codesign
• Inc.com
• Gigaom
• Tech Cocktail
• Tech In Asia
• The Verge
• Product Hunt
• Innovation Excellence
• Innovation Management
• Growthhackers
• Tech.eu
• Betakit.com
• Startup Stash
• Stratechery
• Harvard Business Review
• Japan Trends
• Technology Review by MIT
• Fubiz
• Venturebeat
• Idea Couture
• Design Taxi
• Iterative Path
• Business Insider: Chart of the day
• Reddit Startups
• Think with Google
• DigitalTrends.com

Which innovators should I read about?

• Marc Benioff
• Thomas Edison
• The Wright Brothers
• Mark Zuckerberg
• Larry Page
• Jeffrey Grossman
• Benjamin Franklin
• Steve Jobs
• Reid Hoffman
• James Clerk Maxwell - our particular favourite innovator and unheralded legend.
• Martine Rothblatt
• Galileo Galilei
• Sandford Fleming
• Hiroshi Mikitani
• Richard Branson
• Ray Kurzweil
• Richard Feynman
• Leonardo da Vinci
• Alexander Graham Bell
• Bill Gates
• Marie Curie
• Larry Ellison
• Elon Musk
• Nikola Tesla
• Sergey Brin
• Jeff Bezos
• Michael Dell

What are some great books about innovation?

• The Innovator's Dilemma - "Absolutely brilliant. Clayton Christensen provides an insightful analysis of changing technology and its importance to a company’s future success." - Michael R. Bloomberg
• The Innovator's Solution - Follow up to The Innovator's Dilemma
• The Innovator's DNA - sensing a theme here?
• Leapfrogging - "Leapfrogging is the new handbook for the modern leader"
• The Infinite Tortoise: The Curious Thought Experiments of History's Great Thinkers A fascinating guide to philosophical thought experiments.

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Recommended Reading about Innovation (articles on the web):

Article	Author
You need an Innovation Strategy	Gary P. Pisano
Why Is Innovation So Hard?	Edward D. Hess
Innovation Leadership (PDF)	David Horth, Dan Buchner
Creativity exercises to improve your lateral thinking abilities	Lorenzo Del Marmol
Diffusion of Innovations	Wikipedia
How to Implement Open Innovation (PDF)	Letizia Mortara, Johann Jakob Napp, Imke Slacik and Tim Minshall
Disruption is not a strategy	Jerry Neumann
The 40 Greatest Innovations of All Time	Ryan Allis
HBR Innovation Articles	Various Harvard Business Review Contributors
McKinsey Innovation Articles	Various McKinsey&Company Contributors
FT Innovation Articles	Various Financial Times Contributors
Entrepreneur Magazine Innovation Articles	Various Entrepreneur Contributors
How the Top Innovators Keep Winning	Barry Jaruzelski and Kevin Dehoff

Further Innovation Reading Material

The articles and pages in the table below are algorithmically selected and cover the topic of innovation. These articles are generally well-written and/or have been shared via social media a number of times.

Innovation Article/Page	Total Shares
What Is Disruptive Innovation?	25,481
You Need an Innovation Strategy	16,072
6 Ways To Create A Culture Of Innovation	12,242
32 Innovations That Will Change Your Tomorrow - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com	11,698
The eight essentials of innovation - McKinsey & Company	9,399
Technology News - 2017 Innovations and Future Tech	6,031
The Economist explains what disruptive innovation means	5,616
Design Thinking as a Strategy for Innovation	2,636
Future technology: 22 ideas about to change our world - Science Focus	1,700
Difference Between Creativity And Innovation - Business Insider	1,581
Why Clayton Christensen Is Wrong About Uber And Disruptive Innovation - TechCrunch	1,400
What is innovation? 15 experts share their innovation definition - Idea to Value	1,200
Disruptive innovation - Wikipedia	1,074
Top innovations in construction - raconteur.net	901
Why Is Innovation Management So Important to Compete? - HuffPost	777
Creativity and Innovation: Your Keys to a Successful Organization - HuffPost	737
20 innovations for 2015 - Technology - The Guardian	703
10 Practices from the Most Innovative Organizations - The Creativity Post	603
What is innovation? definition and meaning - BusinessDictionary.com	545
Disruptive Innovation	453
The Importance of Creativity and Innovation in Business - LinkedIn	425
Incremental vs. radical: What’s the future of product innovation? - Design Council	376
Innovation - Wikipedia	363
Creativity and Innovation in the Workplace - BusinessDictionary.com	319
Leadership and innovation - McKinsey & Company	303
What Is Management’s Role in Innovation? - HBS Working Knowledge - Harvard Business School	195
The Best Definition of Innovation - Scott Berkun	155
Innovation Quotes - BrainyQuote	128
Defining Social Innovation - Stanford Graduate School of Business	116
Creativity and Innovation Quotes - LeadingThoughts - LeadershipNow.com	75
The Difference Between Creativity and Innovation - Fleximize	70
How do you Define Innovation and Make it Practical and Saleable to Senior Management? - Innovation Management	68
What is Innovation? Improvement vs. Innovation - ASQ	59
15 Types of innovation - The gentle art of smart stealing	57
Creativity and Innovation - P21	37
What is the Difference between Creativity and Innovation? - Destination Innovation	36
Innovation - Definition of Innovation by Merriam-Webster	32
The Innovation Process - CPI	25
The Difference Between ‘Invention’ and ‘Innovation’	25
What is Innovation? 30+ definitions lead to one fresh summary - Fresh Consulting	23
Knowledge, Creativity and Innovation by David Gurteen (Gurteen Knowledge)	23
10 New Innovations That Could Change the World - Brookings Institution	23
Use innovation to grow your business	22
Technological innovation system - Wikipedia	16
Innovation management - Wikipedia	16
The Crucial Difference Between Creativity and Innovation - Lateral Action	15
Innovation	15
Innovation in Business: Importance, Types & Examples	14
Classifying innovations - ExtremeFactories Project Site	13
Motivation, creativity and innovation in individuals, and their relationship to group and team dynamics - Health Knowledge	11

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