Innovation: Single most important factor

It amazes me that there are still business leaders who don’t appreciate the importance of innovation … and even more who think that it will somehow happen automatically. If customer service or quality or financial savvy doesn’t happen automatically, why would innovation?

Perhaps we’ve taken a small step forward now that the InnovateAmerica final report from the Council on Competitiveness is out. It deserves to be read by anyone interested in innovation.

Here is the opening statement:

“Innovation will be the single most important factor in determining America’s success through the 21st century.” It continues by stating, “innovation-driven growth (is) a more urgent imperative than ever before.”

The report recognizes that we have focused on efficiency and quality for the past 25 years and now it is time to place the same level of focus and energy on innovation. In a rather interesting twist on the “Innovate or Die” theme, the report states, “Innovate or Abdicate.” In other words if you’re not leading innovation, you shouldn’t be leading.

The definition crafted by the group is:

"The intersection of invention and insight, leading to the creation of social and economic value."

While there are hundreds of definitions floating around, this is one of the best. It incorporated the concept of new understanding (insight) coming together with the urge to create something new (invention), all in the service of creating new value, in this case social and economic.

Innovation is not only a good business strategy ... and it's not only our patriotic duty (as emphasized in this report) ... but it is also our only hope for solving the immense challenges facing our world today.

More on this report in future posts.

Comments

[Paul Hobcraft]

Like you I was waiting with interest on the NII report that was released in December 2004

It lays out some policy decisions that hopefully will be implemented and adopted for US policy, across Business, Government and Education to accelerate and promote innovation.

One comment though:

I felt excited when I first read the interim report a number of months back. It had more aspirations, more intent. It seemed more 'connected' with the 'struggles' of today in innovation and seemed to lay out more of a promise of a high level group combining forces together to place innovation on a higher plain- to give it some breakthrough thinking. The promise of all that 'collective wisdom' to come together based on different commitee themes I felt might give innovation that real breakthrough that it most probably needs to become "the single most important factor in determining America's success through the 21st centure". Something got lost along the way to the final report. It is a pity.

It gave an interesting anaylsis of a large set of problems that needed to be addressed and some sound recommendations to be implemented

This excitement I felt has somehow been lost in the final report. It seems, from my view, that this "essence" has not got to the final report, its been boiled down, possibly abandoned and maybe, through the size of the co-ordinating task and the need to consider so much conflicting, diverse and vested opinion it became more incremental, perhaps more realisistic, so we have ended up with a solid, dependable, sometimes predictable report. It partly identifies and recommend ways to clear current road blocks and suggests a range of fresh incentives but may not have achieve what I felt might have been a ground breaking report.

Perhaps it is too much to ask from such a collection of views but something just seemed to have got lost between aspiration and realization but innovation does need the 'bigger vision' and I was hoping the final report might give us more of this.