On the nature of Innovation
Innovation is in a way at the hearth of the pirate’s spirit and probably the first weapon against competitors. Finding something totally new, grasp a revolutionary idea and taking it into practice, it is something entrepreneurs and companies alike are often obsessed with.
It is often believed that innovation goes hand in hand with creativity, and the quality of being able to find unusual, or totally new solutions to common problems. What is creativity though? Apparently agreeing on this simple concept it is something scientists and psychologists alike find quite difficult.
Dr. R. Keith Sawyer, a professor of psychology and education at the university of Washington in St. Luis, wrote an interesting book about the matter: “Explaining Creativity. The Science of Human Innovation”.
Explaining Creativity is actually the first book in this field, aimed to summarize all the recent finds on creativity, psychology and related fields.
There are different definitions of creativity that have been established during the years. Scientists for example would consider creative a work of genius to solve an unusual problem in a new or unique way; behaviourists on the other hand would rather look for a kind of social recognition, while human beings, would in general rather associate creativity with the idea of an original work that breaks conventions and sets new rules and standards.
All definition would have something in common, but would as well miss something by treating creativity as something really personal, with almost a kind of religious reverence. It is instead important to understand that creativity is not a trait or quality of an individual. Nature itself is very creative in its evolutionary processes, but also groups, societies, networks, can all be very collaboratively and creative, despite the individual properties and qualities of the entities forming the group, the society or the network.
Innovation as creativity it is something that has been debated upon by sociologists, scientists, psychologists and business people alike. Many have almost mystified innovation as only a leap of genius in finding what everyone else has failed to see. On the contrary innovation is often the product of a rational analysis, rather than an inspirational process.
In the imaginary of people for example, all great discoveries are a product of some accident: a sudden realization, like for Newton and his apple, or Einstein and his bicycle.
Yet innovation is in a way different from just discovering something new.
Something innovative would in fact, have an impact on society, or in business terms, on the market.
An organization (or an individual) to create innovation and hence being innovative would have to understand that the market is in constant mutation and that it is constantly reinventing itself and the economic structure from within, hence at the same time destroying (or overcoming) the old models, and creating new ones.
These concepts are outlined by Joseph Schumpeter in “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy”, where he explores the concept of Creative Destruction.
The process of Creative Destruction is at the very core of Capitalism itself. In just a few words, our economic system is based on constant change and every organization or entrepreneur has to live in this constantly evolving climate. Capitalism is in fact the new Tortuga for modern economic pirates.
