What is Innovation?

You’ve probably heard the quote:

“If I’d have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me ‘A faster horse’ ” - Henry Ford

I love that quote and it is often sighted as the reason innovation exists. So when do you innovate and when do you listen to your customers? At what point are you just using your own ideas from personal, albeit expert, opinion without market facts and calling it innovation?

Perhaps as bad as that practice sounds to a Product Manager that in a nutshell is really what innovation is all about isn’t it? You have to envision something so big and game changing that you think the market would buy it without a clear view into a specific problem to be solved. It is only after some time the process would be considered bad practice when the idea doesn’t take off and called innovation when it does. If the gas-powered auto failed would Henry Ford still have been an innovator?

Sadly I do not have the answers to all these but have begun embarking on a quest for the answers and I am finding that innovation is actually not well defined. Most of the descriptions of innovation are based on the outcome of an innovative culture. “Find something that is really breakout and build that”. That is helpful but that is the outcome of innovation, not innovation itself.

There are two companies known for their innovation – Apple and Disney. Check these out, it is a good place to start:

• “You Can’t Innovate Like Apple”, The Pragmatic Marketer, Volume 6, Issue 4, 2008
• “How Disney perfected the Brainstorm”, Business Innovation Forum, July 2009.

If you’ve found any particularly good material on innovation please comment, my quest has just begun.

UPDATE: Good interview on Creating a Culture of Innovation with James Andrew who leads Boston Consulting Group's Innovation Practice.