I have been working on an idea for my first blog post. I have been looking on business sites and learning about innovative ideas in the marketplace. I looked at serious social issues, world trade issues and nothing has hit me over the head as to this is the article I should write! I looked at what influences our business community and daily lives more than anything else and I came up with “Products”. Our whole economy is built on selling and introducing product. Companies thrive on introducing new products into the marketplace. To remain relevant and competitive there is a constant need to improve. Companies do this by innovating. As I wrote that last line, I discovered my topic; innovation and what people see as innovation in their lives.
People think in order to be innovative you need to create something totally brand new, not the case. Most innovation is really an improvement to something that has been around forever. Take a look at the microwave, when it came out, it most definitely was an innovation. But is it not just an improvement to the stove? I think that can be said for a lot of innovations. Is the bicycle not just an improvement to the unicycle? I think in fact that it is the other way around with the bicycle, but I digress. A definite improvement is easy to spot and because of that most people think they know what an innovation is. Innovation can be classified on a smaller scale; it can be a new way to seal a container or adding ingredients to a baked good recipe to shorten baking time. It is not normally seen by the naked eye. The problem a company has when trying to identify their innovation is that it goes unnoticed. Companies are so absorbed in the final product that they don’t see the innovation that happens along the way.
There is definite value in finding innovation in your company. I can speak to this when it comes to ITC’s (Innovative Tax Credits). Until an outsider like myself points it out to them, most companies I visit don’t realize how innovative they are. Sometimes it takes someone impartial to see what they’re missing right under their own noses.
So what do people see as innovation in their lives? Well, from my standpoint they are not getting the whole picture. Everyone can assume that innovation is something totally new and different and never been seen before, but there are smaller innovations that happen all the time that go unnoticed.