Hi Ton,

Nice thoughts about innovation. I'd like to share mine, and hope to add something new.
Innovation for me is more-or-less a new way of looking at problems. Problems we find are mostly (in our work) being able to bring quality to our customers. The better we fit their needs, the greater the quality of our work. But, as time changes, our customers and their wishes tend to change.
We must adapt, and when we need a silver bullet or a cunning plan, innovation is the holy grail we seek for.

Innovation isn't always big, nor expensive, nor high-tech. You hit the problem on the spot in your blog. In my view, innovation is the result of a creative, consumer-driven, analytical mindset.

By stating problems bluntly, by daring to experiment, by looking at problems from a different view-point we are able to come up with innovative solutions. They're called innovative because others didn't come up with them - mostly because of the price, thechnology, or something else.

Innovation is hard to manage - money makes us lazy and sandbox solutions don't work in the real world. (The lack of ) innovation is the symptom, not the cause. The cause may be the high threshold to start something new or the lack of real problems, or our culture based on safety and risk-control?

I don't know, but I learned that it's easier to start something unique when it's small and outside of the spotlight together with compassionate clients then via the usual paths (Syntens, TOP, EU subsidies, etc...)

(sorry for the bad english)

The problem i see 'inovation' as talked about, wrote about is: 'inovation' is equate to 'invention'. But is it?

Most of us 'inovate' all the time, but if it not BIG enough that can be noticed, it is not 'inovation', it is NOT new idea.

Before the craz about 'inovation' (the same I feel about all these talks about knowledge management), does it mean that we NEVER inovate? I think the more we talk about things such as inovation, KM, trust, the more we are confusing the 'average person'. THe more we confuse them, the more they become wondering if the belong to the 'inovative' society. All these talks about inovation actually kills inovation. People become scares of doing things that is wrong in the eyes of all these talks from clever researchers.

All these reminds me of the time I took an appetitude test to be a software programmer. In 1980. The report came back and told me/my manager the tests shown that I can do 'simple thing'. I did not get the job of course. Worse still that same casual remark crashed me. For years I walked around wondering how simple is simple enough for me to manage.

And if such a report can crashed a person who has a strong personality like me, can one imagine what it would do to anyone who has lesser self-confidence?

In my observation, we as a people, has one thing to learn: to be less of an individual, and more as a team player and support one another. No matter how clever or inovative you think you are, you need others to support you and your ideas. Inovation can never happen from the idea of JUST ONE SINGLE person. That I think is what is missing in most of the discussions that I read.

Cindy