the
innovative LEDGER
An e-Newsletter from The Innovative Edge™ Inc.
Vol.
10, No. 5 - May 2010
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Innovation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery
By Jeff Govendo
Last
December in this newsletter, I wrote about the impressive number of
innovative products the State of Israel generates in comparison with
much larger and wealthier industrial nations. One of the reasons
for this success is the ease with which private entrepreneurs have
borrowed technological concepts from the military and applied them
to new products for civilian life. An example is the PillCam,
a nanocamera that projects internal pictures from the body, often
eliminating the need for invasive exploratory surgery. Its technology
is based on censors embedded in fighter jets.
I
referred to these as examples of Israeli innovation. However, a recent
article that appeared in the Boston Globe ("The Imitation Economy,"
April 18) suggested this was merely imitation -- not innovation
-- because the underlying concept had already been thought of and
applied. Imitation, author Drake Bennett suggested, would appear
to be much more pervasive than innovation, because so much of what
we consider new is really just a re-working of other people's ideas.
Not
that being an imitator is bad, he noted. The article, in fact,
rather extolled the virtues of imitation as a way in which "real"
innovations are ultimately perfected, widely distributed, and made
affordable to all.
But
he does want us to get our terms straight. Innovation, Mr. Bennett
implies, would be reserved for those ideas that are purely and singularly
original; concepts that spring from some virgin real estate in
the brain that is unaware of any similar applications that may already
be out there.
This
view would render no less a figure than, say, Thomas Edison -- considered
by many the greatest inventor ever -- a mere imitator, since the
incandescent bulb was actually created some 60 years earlier by Frenchman
Walter de la Rue. And even he based it on earlier, somewhat successful
experiments with electrically-produced light.
So
there you have it... Thomas Alva Edison: copycat!
Likewise
Henry Ford, whose erstwhile innovation, the assembly line, had already
been in limited use at Singer Sewing Machine and some smaller factories.
Or Steve Jobs, who actually borrowed from Xerox the idea of using
a mouse with icons to run his Macintosh computer. And Bill Gates,
who famously borrowed the concept for Windows from... Steve Jobs.
By
Mr. Bennett's standards, the "true" innovator would be as
rare a creature as the Loch Ness monster or abominable snowman.
In
fact, though, we are all borrowers of ideas. Each of us carries
around the sum total of everything we've ever learned, seen, touched,
smelled, read about or argued over. And whether
consciously aware of it or not, we have all had occasions in which
we've called upon these for clues to solving a new problem we're working
on. Our unique ability to recollect these pieces of knowledge and
insight, re-configure them, and apply them in a new context for a
new purpose is, in my opinion, the very essence of innovation.
For
innovators, it matters less where an idea came from than what they
actually do with it.
So
why the fuss? Isn't this just a matter of semantics?
Actually,
more. Most people know that innovation does begin with a creative
idea (wherever it came from). That's the raw material of innovation.
But if a person doesn't consider himself to be particularly creative,
he may not believe he can contribute in any way to an innovation process
within his organization. Others, like his boss, may believe that
too. So he gets passed over or opts out, taking all that lifelong
learning and experience with him; all those "clues."
Multiply
that by dozens or hundreds of employees, and you begin to get a sense
of how much brain power is wasted in so many organizations,
simply by overlooking or excluding people from the process of idea
generation.
So,
unless a patent lawyer tells you otherwise, don't worry about whether
an idea has the never-before-thought-of stamp of authenticity. For
innovators, the important question is: is there some new element to
it, and does it potentially solve a real-life problem? If the
answer is yes, you may have come up with a "real" innovation!
And
perhaps the sincerest form of flattery.
