These products fulfil the prevailing definition for innovation, commercialisation of ideas where the interplay between a market and an idea gives us a ‘score’ in currency as to its success. Is the future of innovation a continuation of this linage? Of course those in the business of innovation know there is much more to ‘it’ than the creation of revolutionary products but have we really taken the time to think about what this might be?
Innovation is fundamentally a vehicle for value creation. The relentless pursuit of value creation through innovation has produced a relentless wave of technological advancements, but at what cost? The future of innovation cannot be solely about creation of wealth as a dominant objective but must also factor in sustainability.
This reference to sustainability is an ecological one, but not in an environmental sense alone. The ecology referred to here concerns business inputs and outputs and the level to which these feed a system rather than depleting one. Traditional business approaches and innovation for that matter could be viewed as a closed pipeline. Large volumes or inputs are drawn in one end and smaller outputs emerge at the other to be commercialised. This formula is finite and on a planet that is naturally ecological potentially disastrous.
The industry that is innovation, be it incremental or radical, can play a leading role in the creation of new ways of doing business that consider the impact of any enterprise on the system with which it interacts. Innovation is the engine that can create ecological systems for our enterprises so any waste becomes a resource or an input to another value creation system, where the vast resources of the global corporate world can be leveraged to enrich rather than deplete resources.
Why is this the future of innovation? There is a certain desire and momentum that accompanies the idea of innovation. This momentum is a perfect delivery mechanism for building a more sustainable way of doing business. Transformation of any kind requires the following:
Motivation – Innovation is sexy – people naturally like to be associated with new and interesting ideas and trends.
Capability – Innovation is the science of creating something new – the discipline of innovation brings with it a suite of tools and approaches that support the creation of ‘new.’
Patience – Innovation tolerates false and slow starts – Piloting new approaches kills new approaches as go/no go decisions are based on sales performances alone. The prototyping or user co-design approaches used in innovation allows more time to meet the more complex needs of an ecosystem.
Learning – Innovation feeds innovation – Innovation can be in its own sense a learning ecosystem where learning is recycles to apply a needed where needed.
Innovation has so much to offer. Why don’t we apply it to the most important issue facing us – our future.
source: The Future of Innovation
