Innovation is all the rage – we’ve always known we have to focus on innovation but the media, businesses and even our politicians seem to be amping up the volume of late. Whether it’s harnessing and creating fire to warm one’s cave, pondering “The Innovator’s Dilemma” or seeking “The New New Thing,” the quest for innovation is the foundation of human progress and better lives through job creation, economic growth and self-actualization.
I recently jotted a note to myself as fodder for this blog post that most times recognizing an innovation is every bit the barrier to its adoption as the innovation’s creation itself. My experiences creating and selling database marketing solutions (80’s) and then interactive marketing solutions (90’s) certainly paints my view. In the early days the sales cycles were long and the testing cycles before bigger spending were even longer. Businesses were cautious about shifting funds from mass media to the newer data-driven marketing channels. In some cases it took shocks to the system (like recession) to spur adoption among large brands. Faster change often comes out of chaos.
My experience is far from unique, of course, as pioneers, inventors, entrepreneurs and change agents can all share tales of how their missionary zeal was often met with skepticism or even hostility. There are even popular myths about innovation gone unnoticed or “topping out.” One such myth, attributed to IBM’s Chairman Tom Watson, with various citations and conflicting dates, is “I think there is a world market for about five computers.” Another is “Everything that can be invented has been invented” attributed to Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of the US Patent and Trademark Office in 1899. Though these broadly referenced quotes have been debunked as myths, they underscore the challenge faced by innovators.
Though we have dismissed myths of old, adoption of innovations faces other challenges. Just this week I picked up Wired magazine’s August issue and enjoyed Clive Thompson’s article on “The Breakthrough Myth” that points out that innovations often languish in relative anonymity as market conditions and people gradually come around to facilitate their adoption. As Thompson relates, this is contrary to the popular myth that innovation is a special form of genius, demonstrated by a breakthrough that rips through the marketplace with rapid adoption. His examples include the “pinch-and-zoom” gesture used on Apple’s iPhone, pioneered in 1983, and Microsoft Kinect taking gesture-based sensing and controls to levels beyond the motion detecting activation of automatic retail store doors, lights and alarm systems. The iPhone gesture and Kinect just seem like new innovations as they finally burst into mainstream consciousness through new applications of the original innovation.
So how do we do a better job of recognizing innovation to spur its adoption and adaptation in order to accelerate human progress? Universities, consultants, businesses, politicians and economists are among those all trying to crack the code. The only simple answer I can suggest is to start with what is still the most powerful computing device we know – an open mind.
