If you search Amazon for “Innovation,” you’ll get over 39,000 book titles. I’ve read a tiny fraction of the total, but a much larger fraction of the true standouts. And I’ve written a couple books myself. Innovation is a huge topic, and you can slice and dice it in, well, tens of thousands of ways. Can such a large topic be boiled down to a few enduring principles and ten strategies in an 800-word column? Let’s try.
The challenge begins with the definition of innovation. Most of the definitions I’ve seen are overly complicated, scholarly descriptions full of qualifications, and generally serve to exclude the everyman from innovating. IMHO, the best definition of innovation on the planet is the one given by David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue: “Innovation is trying to figure out a way to do something better than it’s ever been done before.” That echoes Thomas Edison’s mantra of “There’s a way to do it better—find it.”
To read the full, original article click on this link: Ten Tips and Twenty Questions for Unleashing Innovation : The World :: American Express OPEN Forum
Author: Matthew E. May
Matthew E. May is an innovation consultant and the author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing. He blogs here. You can follow him on Twitter
