21 Jun 2012 You call that innovation?

Got innovation? Just about every company says it does, but the term has begun to lose meaning… (click infographic to enlarge)

Businesses throw around the term to show they’re on the cutting edge of everything from technology and medicine to snacks and cosmetics. Companies are touting chief innovation officers, innovation teams, innovation strategies and even innovation days.

But that doesn’t mean the companies are actually doing any innovating. Instead they are using the word to convey monumental change when the progress they’re describing is quite ordinary.

Like the once ubiquitous buzzwords “synergy” and “optimization”, innovation is in danger of becoming a cliché — if it isn’t one already.

“Most companies say they’re innovative in the hope they can somehow con investors into thinking there is growth when there isn’t,” says Clayton Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of the 1997 book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma.”

The definition of the term varies widely depending on whom you ask. To Bill Hickey, chief executive of Bubble Wrap’s maker, Sealed Air Corp, it means inventing a product that has never existed, such as packing material that inflates on delivery.

To Ocean Spray Cranberries CEO Randy Papadellis, it is turning an overlooked commodity, such as leftover cranberry skins, into a consumer snack like Craisins.

To Pfizer’s research and development head, Mikael Dolsten, it is extending a product’s scope and application, such as expanding the use of a vaccine for infants that is also effective in older adults.

Scott Berkun, the author of the 2007 book “The Myths of Innovation,” which warns about the dilution of the word, says that what most people call an innovation is usually just a “very good product.”

He prefers to reserve the word for civilization-changing inventions like electricity, the printing press and the telephone — and, more recently, perhaps the iPhone.

Berkun, now an innovation consultant, advises clients to ban the word at their companies.

“It is a chameleon-like word to hide the lack of substance,” he says….

Wall Street Journal: Read the full article

You can set your watch to it. About every six months an article appears arguing that innovation is an overused term, with corporate fatigue auguring a “back to basics” approach focused on less sexy but important tasks of execution, strategy, and so on.

The latest salvo was a much discussed Wall Street Journal article carrying the provocative title, “You Call That Innovation?” The article had choice lines such as “like the once ubiquitous buzzwords ‘synergy’ and ‘optimization,’ innovation is in danger of becoming a cliché — if it isn’t one already.” (In a related HBR post, Bill Taylor shares his thoughts on the same WSJ article, and why he believes it deserves serious consideration.)

No doubt the term innovation is bankrupt at some companies, particularly those that throw the word around without defining it clearly. The Little Black Book of Innovation offers a simple, five-word definition: “Something different that has impact.” This intentionally broad definition helps to disarm three common misconceptions.

The first misconception is that innovation and creativity are the same things. Companies that fall into this trap think that the best way to solve the innovation problem is to bring in a wide range of right-brained thinkers, put them in a room, and ask them think of awesome ideas.

There is no doubt that awesome ideas serve as an important input that can lead to impact, but if companies stop at idea-generation, they are destined to suffer disappointing results. As The Little Black Book notes, “Innovation is a process that combines discovering an opportunity, blueprinting an idea to seize that opportunity, and implementing that idea to achieve results. Remember — no impact, no innovation.”

The second misconception is that only a select group of people should drive a company’s innovation activities….

Harvard Business Review: Read the full article