Unleashing the power of innovation to solve the big social challenges of our time including health care, education, and energy is as simple and plain as our belly buttons. In the spirit of navel gazing I think a lot about how to simplify the innovation narrative, make it more inclusive, and become more experimental. I offer a belly button theory of innovation and its three constructs: one belly button at a time, from innies to outies, and beyond navel gazing.
One Belly Button at a Time
For starters we need a shared definition for innovation. Our rhetoric is all over the place and innovation has become a buzzword. Everything is an innovation and everyone is an innovator and of course when that happens nothing and no one is. We conflate invention with innovation. They are not the same. A simple definition: Innovation is a better way to deliver value. It is not an innovation until value is delivered one belly button at a time. Often we don’t have to invent anything new to deliver value or solve a problem. We have to get better at reconfiguring and recombining existing capabilities and technologies in order to deliver value. We have more technology available to us than we know how to absorb or deploy. It is not technology that gets in the way of innovation it is stubborn humans and organizations that resist change.
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Author: Saul Kaplan
