Talk:Innovation/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Obviousness?

If you can't cite the book(s), it's not so obvious as you suggest. Sometimes things are expressed similarly even though there has been no deliberate attempt at plagiarism. Simultaneous invention is legend in the world of patents. Does anyone think it doesn't happen in any of the other areas of human endeavor? Unless you can absolutely show that the text has been copied, you shouldn't impugn by inference. I've seen far too much of this by forum trolls all over the Internet. Let's at least try to keep things factual and non-accusatory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.17.209.188 (talk) 04:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Change to lead section

hi I'd like to propose a change to the lead section. Most casual readers approaching the topic for the first time probably don't want to straight away read 5 different definitions. Most pages are structured so that the first sentences give an overview of the topic. If there are any disagreements about the exact definition, that usually seems to come later. To get the ball rolling, I'd like to propose this at the beginning of the lead section-

Innovation is the act of bringing about an improvement by introducing something new, such as an idea, product or process. The term can also be used to refer to the new thing itself. In popular useage, the term innovative is often used as a promotional tool to describe a product, service or company. However, its use in various areas of literature is usually more specific.

I think the 5 definitions should be in the first section under the TOC, under the heading Definitions or Classic definitions. Any thoughts on this? --BrettRob 01:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

_______________

I must disagree with the proposal that we should define innovation as improvement. Improvement is improvement. Innovation is something altogether different, and it has been watered down (as the vice-provost of USC recently put it) because for some reason we feel that the word innovation is more 'positive' when applied to simple changes, inventions, or improvements.

As a later passage indicates, innovation is distinct from improvement or invention in the following way: Innovation occurs when someone changes how the world works, how people organize themselves, or how they conduct their lives. It is the change that alters how people perceive the world. A better mousetrap, if it continues simply to catch mice somewhat more efficiently, does not meet this test, even if it makes the inventor a lot of money (which would then qualify it as an 'innovation' under some less rigorous, business-oriented definitions). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.98.77.21 (talk) 16:15, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Alternative place to work on some ideas

While I'm still not entirely happy with the present Innovation page on Wikipedia, it has improved considerably in the last few months. I did some work with about 1000 printed pages on this topic I had collected, starting by throwing out 700 of them. For the remainder I read and highlighted the text and flagged the most interesting parts. (190 flags)

I'm creating a set of pages on wikispaces. I'm about 75% done in working through the 190 flags. The work is still in first draft stage. Even a spell check has not been done. However that rawness might encourage some of you to have a play there. You can't do much harm and something good might develop from it. Here's the space: http://innovation.wikispaces.com/

John --Johnsveitch 13:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Wiki Spaces have at last granted me some control over the space "Innovation", so I can invite you over, and you can become members. We want to keep Wikipedia as authorative as possible. Over at Wiki Spaces we've got a little more room to move. Lots of space to play with. You are welcome. Johnsveitch 11:38, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Creatology?

Unless anyone suggests a good reason why those creatology links need to be there, I will remove them soon.

They seem totally out of place here.

Look forward to your comments.

LMackinnon 13:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, I removed them. They reference TRIZ extensively (although the rest of the text is in Arabic). If it belongs here at all, I expect it should be in the creativity page, not the innovation one. LMackinnon 11:55, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Replace all 3 external links

I think all three links provided currently are not WP-standard. They are non-academic in all cases and obvious self-promotional in at least two. I think they should be deleted and replaced by something better. As long as we do not have better sites to add, I suggest to put a link to Google Scholar search for "innovation" there. (madmaxx, not logged in)

I agree with this general idea. But I've been trying to find good links to material on innovation for 10 years. First there are very few possible links, and those that exist are unreliable. There is very little accademic work on innovation that says anything of interest to a general audience. See my own "innovation Links" page here http://www.ate.co.nz/innovation/innovationlinks.html Johnsveitch 06:14, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Nice page - good addition to the links. :) LMackinnon 12:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Yesterday I used Google Scholar. In a couple of hours I did turn up some things I'd like to read, but very little of it generally available online. Several published books were listed but over a 15 year period. Innovation appears to be an area where the small amount of academic work that has been done is not widely known. Johnsveitch 21:18, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I would debate your proposition that there is just a "small amount of academic work" done in innovation. For example, in the course of chasing something up today, I had a look at a couple of Journals - Research-Technology Management and Journal of Product Innovation Management - and my impression is that there is quite a lot of good, solid academic literature on innovation, even just taking these two alone (and there are probably dozens or hundreds of other journals with good content, e.g. ). I found some helpful articles in the International Journal of Innovation Management. I would bet that if you went through the various journals you'd find something like 50 academic journals directly about innovation (from various perspectives - marketing, strategy, R&D, produce development, organisational management, etc and from different fields, e.g. management, economics, psychology, etc) and probably a few hundred including innovation as part of its subject domain. Just because the Economists or other works you read from any given discipline don't do a lot on innovation doesn't mean there isn't a lot of work out there! :) LMackinnon 12:29, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a lack of anything on the organisational business climate for innovation in this section. I've added a link, but it keeps getting removed: http://www.m1creativity.com/climate-for-innovation.htm Perhaps it is not academic enough at the start of my section, but it does outline the main contributors to this field further down! Am I wasting my time ?Davidweeks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidweeks (talk • contribs) 08:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for creating an account and discussing the issue here.

"It keeps getting removed". Yes it does. You've been adding it through a dynamic ip address, so you may not have seen the many warnings about adding this link. Some are now on your current talk page, asking you to read WP:EL, WP:SPAM, and WP:COI. --Ronz 16:07, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Ronz, but there's too much information in those documents for me to work out why I'm not successful. In today's computer age I would expect a more targeted automated reason, which I could then possibly address. I'll leave it to Google, etc, help users find the article. David —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidweeks (talk • contribs) 09:16, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

External Link Suggestion

I propose we put http://www.littleinnovationbook.com. Its not that academic, but it is comprehensive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.132.162.243 (talk) 05:52, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Defining Innovation.

I've added two dictionary definitions with derivation. In terms of general understanding almost any change may be considered an innovation. A photographer friend sent me a photograph of a colourful design he had made. I'm prepared (reluctantly) to grant that the design is unique and is an innovation. However he also sent me a dozen variations of the image each with slightly different colour tones. He claims each is an innovation. I don't think so. We need to apply the sort of rules applied to patents here. Innovations must be novel and do more than be an example of prior art. As an economist by training I prefer the idea that innovations add economic value.

There are also two new business definitions of innovation, both of which are more narrow and I suggest are more useful than the dictionary definitions. There is still one thing missing in my view. The concept of deliberate intervention into the existing process. Here is my personal definition: "Innovations are purposeful changes made to an existing product, process or service with the intention of creating additional new value." Note here the 'intention' to create additional value. Many innovations, probably the great majority fail to achieve that purpose. The Dept of Trade and Industry in the UK choose to only count the 'successful' innovations. So where does that leave unsuccessful innovations? Innovative failures are never completely lost, the lessons learnt flow on to future successes.

Looks good! :) LMackinnon 12:42, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Peter Drucker's definition is more neutral. A new dimension for performance can exist, and not necessarily be captured. Johnsveitch 01:58, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Eric Reiss has lectured extensively on innovation in Europe and North America, mostly for IT and web groups. He seems to have been one of the first people to differentiate between invention and innovation. — MMøller , — (continues after insertion below.)

Hardly, this is a very old distinction Jamesks (talk) 16:14, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

There is an interesting 2005 blog post, including a good diagram that shows how Reiss relates invention, innovation and best practice as steps in an evolutionary process:

• Dutch blog of SIGCHI meeting in October 2005 at whch Eric Reiss keynoted on innovation

Here are links to a keynote speech he held last year in Italy.

• Video - Eric Reiss keynote on innovation at Italian IA Summit in Trento, November 16 2007 in Italian and English (part 1 of 2)
• Video - Part 2 of Eric Reiss's innovation keynote in Trento, Italy

There was also a videocast pf Reiss from a university in Crakow, Poland but the link has since gone dead.

Mmøller —Preceding comment was added at 15:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The Quality of this page.

The topic of innovation is badly understood and written about in very confusing ways. The Wikipedia page on Innovation demonstrates that. I inserted a short quote by Peter F Drucker. LMackinnon saw fit to remove it. The Drucker Foundation has been since 1991 a leading advocate of innovation in business, government and non-profit organizations. Drucker and his work is not mentioned anywhere in the Wikipedia text.

I wrote a personal explanation of what innovation is, which was far too long but identified the problems with the present page. Change and creativity are mostly merely change and and creativity, there is no innovative quality. Innovation is purposeful, it seeks to solve a problem of some sort. In my experience that problem has often existed for a long time, mostly unrecognized, but perhaps recognized and unresolved. People who are innovative usually have a long history which prepares them to "see in a new way" prior to the innovative idea revealing itself. Until that time, being professional, applying personal and company values, creates a barrier to seeing the pattern that makes innovation possible.

I think LMackinnon, has recently put massive effort into the Innovation page. I thank him for that. But the page suffers many problems. It needs the efforts of a team of players. I can probably being a team of players to the case. (Some of whom will be a problem, but most of whom will have valuable insights and knowledge.) This Wikipedia page on Innovation suffers from being very confusing, and largely unhelpful. While many people are quoted the discussion doesn't go anywhere. In the end the quotes used seem to come from a come from a very narrow academic base, great for an argument on fine points of detail, but of very little use in explaining in a sensible way what innovation is, why innovation is so important, and how more innovation might be encouraged.

In the next few months I'd like to see this page get smaller, and more to the point. Johnsveitch

I'm trying to think of a logical and useful set of headings for the Innovation page. Over the next couple of days I'll try to present them here. Somebody else might like to have a go too. I've no idea if the present structure is good or bad, just a feeling that the page is poorly structured and unhelpful. Johnsveitch

Hi. Since you are interested in a team approach, you might have tried talking to the team before making your changes.

In any case, I have no objection to you mentioning Drucker or any of the other thousands of people who said useful things about innovation. The reason I removed it was that it was out of context and didn't add anything in the sections you added it into. As it stands at the moment, there are a number of relevant sections, each making, in a reasonably concise fashion, a meaningful and pertinent point. Adding something in to a section just to mention Drucker doesn't help - unless what Drucker had to say was relevant to that section.

If you want to talk about Drucker's views on innovation, I would suggest adding a new section, perhaps 'Innovation Thought Leaders' or something along those lines, below section 10 or 11, and adding a subsection for Drucker there. Then you could talk about what Drucker had to say in a section where it's appropriate and adds something strongly to the article.

As you recognise, this is the place to talk about these things - it's hard to fit much in to the edit comment to make more concrete suggestions about where things could be constructively added.

HTH. LMackinnon 03:09, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Slowly we'll get this right. I have gathered many pages of notes in preparation. First we need to agree about the definition of innovation. Second we need to shorten the page by removing to linked pages some of the confusing or erronious material. Third we need to agree about set of suitable heading and sub-headings for this page. Perhaps we need to begin an alternative page with a view to using that as a test bed for a new improved page. Johnsveitch

Put your suggestions forward. But bear in mind that I don't share your view that this page is in need of a massive change. I also don't share your view that it's full of erroneous material. LMackinnon 12:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I've made a little progress. Rather than play with it here I've developed a Tabla Blanc page over in Wiki Spaces where I can have a play and others can help if they so choose. http://innovation.wikispaces.com/Home

Regarding the pieces that I think are faulty or at least don't belong in this topic I point to the following.

• Innovation in Organisations. Needs vigorous editing.
• Types of Innovation: Reads like a badly written text book.
• Goals of Innovation: Probably should be removed entirely.
• Failure of Innovation: Badly written section. Imporant topic. Should have it's own page.
• Innovation Life-cycle: Remove. Faulty idea. I know it's in some text books. Related to economic theory. With innovations you can't tell what will happen. A predictable S curve is certainly wrong. If we're talking about the products in a retail shop the sort of model offered makes sense. The curve for most innovations falls below zero over time and may never recover.
• Innovation Funnel: This is a very specialist use of an idea. Remove, and put it on it's own page.
• Innovation Funnel: In my understanding this is a budgetary and administrative control over corporate innovative efforts. Each project has to apply for recognition and funding that may of may not be give. There are "gates" to try and stop scarce resources flowing into misguided efforts. In any case it still doesn't belong on the main page for "Innovation". Johnsveitch

This is a list of opinions sounding rather judgemental. I basically agree with the editing suggestions, there is room for tightening up several sections of the article. But, as you point out, the S-curve is in the textbooks - and for that reason alone would, I think, merit a place on this page rather than your opinions. The innovation funnel is an absolutely core idea in the management of innovation, and unless the management of innovation is split out as a seperate topic to innovation itself (which would seem sort of pointess to me) then this is the best place for it. Incidently, it might be an idea for you to read up on and understand the idea funnel before claiming it is irrelevant. It is not about control funds, it is about giving ideas due consideration, selecting the ones with potential, and analysing them, progressing them and seeing them through to implementation. LMackinnon 14:34, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the help in the editing. I think you are too close the the present page to see it clearly. Johnsveitch

Whether or not I am 'too close' to the page, the main difference here is that I seem to have a clearer idea about the innovation literature than you do.

For example, if you go and read the reports from the Boston Consulting Group, IBM, etc who survey CEOs of hundreds of Fortune 500 global companies to work out what they are doing in innovation and why, the drivers of innovation are fundametal in linking the innovation activity to business objectives. If you got out and read the innovation literature, you would not be asking to delete the 'goals of innovation' section.

In the nicest possible way, I suggest getting hold of a good review book like the HBR 'Essentials' book on "Managing creativity and Innovation" (reference on innovation article page), which goes over things like the idea funnel, the s-curve etc, emphasising that they are core concepts in the innovation literature.

Other than that, I agree that the article prose can be tightened up. I just have a clearly different approach to editing Wikipedia pages than you do: You seem to want to come in, rock the boat, declare it's all wrong, assert everything must be changed, and you must get rid of the appalling work of others. Generally, as you may find, this is an unproductive strategy, as it puts other people offside, puts people on defensive (and therefore attacking) modes, and generally makes you unpopular and your life harder. On the other hand, you could try a strategy of reorganising and tightening up and extending what's already there. I have made extensive revisions of many wikipedia pages (including this one) following this approach, with no complaints. The bottom line is whether you want to respect and extend the contributions of others, or attack them. And the reality is that whether others' contributions were good or bad, they were usually well intended.

So, some of the sections you were talking about, e.g. the 7 types of innovation, were (in my opinion) not so great before I edited them. Even now, I wouldn't present it quite that way if I was doing it from scratch. It's a synthesis between what I wanted to say and what was already said. But now at least it gets the main point across, in a reasonably concise way - that there are different types of innovation than just product/service innovation. Can it be neatened up? Sure. Is it making a poor point or wasting space? No. It's making an important point, and it very much belongs in the article.

So, for example, if you go and edit it and make the points more clearly in what you regard as better prose or with better examples and the rest of the Wikipedia community agree with you, more power to you. If you go and edit the article section with the result that the message gets changed, the prose becomes worse, and the article section loses relevance, then I or someone else would edit it back, because I or someone else cares about the page and the message in the section you edit.

HTH. LMackinnon 07:17, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I really do appreciate the expertise in using Wikipedia LMackinnon has, and I'm prepared to concede that he has a good command of the literature on innovation as represented on this page. I also agree that the page should develop over time and that significant contributions should not be easily discarded. It's pleasing to see that the page has been improved considerably since I first raised the question. My contribution has been small. Johnsveitch

Structure of page

With regards to your comments about structure, I would be interested to see your suggestions. My approach to Wikipedia has been to make the minimal changes to people's prior contributions as possible. Hence, the page retains a bunch of stuff about technological concepts of innovation and social network approaches that - in their present form - I don't see much value to. Surely innovation is important to technology development, but just listing an OECD excerpt doesn't shed much insight on the topic. Also, I probably would/should move the innovation in organizations section up in the page, as this is sort of definitional as to what innovation is about, as it is commonly perceived.

That said, however, I think there are a number of key topics in innovation, and the present article does, by and large, cover most of the key topics in a reasonable order.

Lengthwise, innovation is a reasonably complex topic with many facets. While some of the sections might be tightened, in my view the article is not excessively long for the topic it covers.

Anyway, interested to hear what sections you think should be added or what structural improvements could be made. LMackinnon 03:19, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Here is a list of topics I developed which I believe would cover "innovation" in a more helpful way.

• Definition - The widest definitions from general dictionaries suggest that any change may be considered an innovation.

you'd have to be careful with that. Corruption creeping in to the Roman Empire (or the American one) over time could be called a change but would you call it innovation? LMackinnon 11:20, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

However when the term innovation is used in technical and economic literature the definition is much more specific. That more specific meaning is what concerns us here.

• The two main bodies of work on innovation are based on Technological Innovation and Economic Innovation.

Personally that claim strikes me as odd - it leaves out pretty much all the business / management literature on innovation. But I think what you are really saying is that the present page doesn't emphasise technological or economic accounts of innovation, and you'd like it to.

However Innovation is Multidimensional and not confined to 7 or any other number of functions.

No-one said that there are only 7 types of innovation.

• The main sources of innovation I suggest are the following:

- Research Based Innovation ( Pharmaceuticals, research laboratories, university research)

- Corporate Innovation ( business model innovation, finance, marketing, many dimensions.)

- Heroic Innovation ( Innovative Champions, one man and his shed, or computer, and skunk works.)

- Community of Practice Innovation ( Lead users, open source, professional sharing of ideas)

Well, there are whole books arguing that what you call "heroic innovation" does not and never did exist. See for example see the book "How breakthroughs happen : the surprising truth about how companies innovate" by Andrew Hargadon. There are also extensive reearch reports showing that R&D is not the main driver of corporate/organisational innovation. I thought what you call Corporate Innovation was already well covered on the page. Hargadon argued for social networks as underlying innovation (what you call "Community of Practice Innovation.")

In any case, I don't have any objection if you want to add those forms of innovation in as well - although it would be better if you had some good references for them. I had never heard of "Community of Practice Innovation", and it sounds sort of made up.

actually, I just looked at the page again, and I think you're right - R&D innovation is probably a bit underplayed. It probably should be discussed more clearly in the 'sources of innovation' section, which currently does not read well and is in need of some editing to tighten it up.

• Since innovative ideas occur in individuals we should look at what sort of people are innovative and why that might be so. We should look at the Person as an Innovator, how innovation and learning are connected, and ways to stack the deck in favour of more innovative responses.

Perhaps. But you'd be walking a fine line differentiating innovation from creativity, and the creativity page covers a lot of this anyway.

• Then there are some topics that don't quite fit above: Perhaps the should have separate pages.

- Measuring Innovation

- The Innovation Funnel

I strongly disagree that these should be on seperate pages as the page stands now - they are fundamental to managing innovation in organisations.

- Why we can't Innovate ( A strange topic perhaps but it generated a very strong debate in a forum I run, last year.)

I thought there was a section for this already (failures and innovation).

I've got Journal notes going back 30 years on this topic. My grounding is innovation is based on economics, and all my early notes on this topic have that bias.

I find economics has precious little to say about creativity, apart from Austrian, Schumpeterian, Neo-Schumpeterian, Post-Keynesian and Evolutionary perspectives - most of which aren't particularly mainstream. This is because mainstream economics believes in a fiction called rational economic man, who is hardly creative. Yet, as I point out in my Ph.D thesis, economists themselves are highly creative in the development of their theories.

The rare exceptions to this are works by people like Paul Romer (looking at creativity and innovation from a combinatorial perspective as the foundation for New Growth Theory) and theories of Entrepreneusrship.

Strangely the business focus on innovation seems to have come very late,

I would have said the same about economics! ;)

judging by my journal the first references in the early 1990's.

Hmmm. But surely you would say that people like Alfred Chandler (business history) were describing innovation in American businesses, or all the contemporary accounts of people like Edison etc were discussion of innovation and/in business?

For a time business innovation seemed to be strongly focused on Total Quality Management, quality circles and project teams. Research on innovation seems to be scarce. There is a great deal of complete nonsense written about innovation, some of it from people who have PhD's and who specialize in business. I wonder if universities are good places to study innovation. I think Bert Munro's shed (The World's Fastest Indian) might offer more insight. ( Bert lived a couple of blocks from me in Invercargill, 20 years ago, although I never met the man. He was considered a bit of a crank, and maybe he was. )

The place to start? Clearly with a definition we can agree on. Johnsveitch

Well, discussion is not bad either. :) LMackinnon 11:20, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

It may be significant to include more recent works discussing the topic of innovation. Frans Johansson published the Medici Effect which discusses the definition of innovation (as a creative idea that is realized), and the way in which individuals and corporations alike can utilize similar principles to generate innovation. His work is very significant and is leading to a new way that corporations think about the topic. Vatchdog 05:16, 7 March 2007 (UTC)Vatchdog

Commercial aspects?

Does the definition of an innovation require a commercial success for an innovator? If Bell had invented two-way mind reading, resulting in zero telephone sales and zero subscription sales for the Bell company, would that have been a wonderful invention but a lousy innovation?

• Everett Rogers, who pioneered Diffusion of Innovation theory, said that an innovation is any concept or thing that is new to a culture. It doesn't even matter if the concept/thing has existed for centuries -- it is an innovation if it is new to the people who encounter it. Many innovations fail because people do not adopt them. If you look at the brief article on Diffusion of Innovations theory, you can find the factors that affect likelihood of adoption. --Westendgirl 06:41, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• So then what is the difference between innovation and invention? --MaxB 21:58, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Cabral definition

One of the interesting things with the Cabral definition of innovation is that the transaction costs are not necessarily commercial or monetaristic. If you reduce your emotional costs due to a new element in your life, you got an innovation, even if there was no money involved.

sounds like a definition of change rather than innovation to me. LMackinnon 15:31, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Not really, change does not require variation in transaction costs. But LMackinnon has a very important point here. The Cabral definition of innovation makes it very clear that innovation is not equal to technological change. In the Cabral context, technological innovation is the derivative of the technological change in relation to transaction costs. So it is a change, but not all changes are innovations. It is also clear that transaction costs have an effect on innovation. This is obvious - The system in which the Cabral definition of innovation emerges is a complex, non linear, system of equations. 02:46, 17 May 2006

28 April 2006 (UTC)

Peter Drucker

I find it strange that there is no reference to "Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles" by Peter Drucker.--UB 10:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Permanent Innovation

The embedded link in the "Permanent Innovation" section leads to a commercial website promoting consultancy services and a book by the same title. The wording in the section is directly lifted from that site, and large claims are made that lack citations and don't seem to be verifiable (e.g., "Permanent Innovation with a focus on the human dimensions of innovation is an absolute necessity, and in fact its principles are contributing significantly to the success of leading companies around the world"). Do any innovation experts here (other than the author of the book) believe that this section belongs here? If not, I will delete.YeahIKnow 20:04, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Innovation Funnel

This doesn't represent a fact about innovation -- it's a metaphor. Whose? If this is an important concept for innovation theorists, it should be attributed to someone.YeahIKnow 00:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

The Innovation Funnel metaphor is mentioned in David O'Sullivan's article mentioned in the references and in some of his earlier works.. --Ooleary 13:27, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Permanent Innovation

Removed the section. I'm a bit confused where it came from. It's unsourced and appeared in violation of WP:SPAM. --Ronz 15:47, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Public awareness:Chicago Innovation Awards

I removed the following from Public awareness:

There is also a growing trend to publicly reward innovation. One example tof this type of initiative is in Chicago with the Chicago Innovation Awards.

It's unsourced and it's a local award. There's not enough information to show a "growing trend", so the addition seems to violate WP:WEASEL. --Ronz 22:41, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Copyvio?

I removed this edit [1] because it appears to be a copyright violation of this material [2]. --Ronz 04:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Removed again. They look to be obvious copyright violations. Other perspectives? --Ronz 17:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Oslo Manual - Newer Version available >>> New Defintion!

Look at this:

OECD; Eurostat (2005). Oslo Manual 2005: The Measurement of Scientific and Technological Activities - Proposed guidelines for collecting and interpreting technological innovation data. : Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Statistical Office of the European Communities.

you can find it on the EU homepage —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.137.114.111 (talk) 00:18, 15 February 2007 (UTC).

Moved from lead

I removed the following from the beginning of the lead. It's unsourced, unencyclopedic, and inappropriate for the lead section. I don't see anything salvageable from it, but thought others should look it over. It was added in a single edit [3]:

In today dynamic environment and fierce competition, the scope of innovation is not about new ideas and creativity on product and process of the creating a product. However, it is critically about capabilities of the firm to produce value to consumers and within the firms. For example, an creative idea and sophisticated product may consider as an innovation, but it is more precise that it is called invention. unique idea without commercialisation to the market and bring value to consumers and the firm is only called invention.

--Ronz 15:19, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Sources of innovation

Can anyone give me an (or multiple) academic source(s) for the statement "what exactly drives innovation in organizations and economies remains an open question"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.56.81.242 (talk) 09:07, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Written by Asaad A. Abduljawad OUHSC.edu MPH program December 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.12.138.66 (talk) 07:30, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

(Mckeown, 2008)

"The term innovation may refer to both radical and incremental changes in thinking, in things, in processes or in services." had been sourced to (Mckeown, 2008) on 20:00, 9 May 2008, but was added 13:22, 28 February 2006 . --Ronz (talk) 18:51, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Value system link for innovation

It may be old, but the definition of innovation used within our company since the '70's read:

Innovation changes the values onto which the system is based

This approach to innovation first of all concentrated on the effect not on the activities employed by creative people, companies, etc. Nor does it say anything about the contents of (the) innovation. What is says is that anything that caused a change in the value-system of the system (to be understood as the Social-/Soft-/Human Activity- System (checkand c.s.) must be regarded as innovation.

An example: constant improvements in the reliability of cars (on lots of aspects) has caused the value system of the consumers to be changed from "it must work 24/7/365" to "it should look nice and it must impress my neighbours".

I'm not an expert on value systems nor old enough to know all literature on innovation since WWII or earlier, but it seems to me that Peter Druckers definition of innovatoin must be somehow related to the above definition. The source of the definition as proposed here seems to be from the well-known "frankfurther shule (germany)" around WWII. As my understanding german is quite modest I have however never been able to find a good reference. Maybe some scolar (historian?) can tell easily. THIS WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED. :-) Hvgard (talk) 10:51, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment at Category:Innovation

I'm thinking about depopulating this category somewhat. Please discuss at Category talk:Innovation ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 06:16, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

does this article make some issues clearer?

http://www.pjonline.com/news/the_reforms_of_pharmacy_in_england_are_novations_and_replacements

i noticed debate on wikipedia - does anything i wrote here help clear things up

first time ive ever done this - forgived me if im breaking protocols —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.110.162.61 (talk) 23:42, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

gf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.201.0.227 (talk) 14:21, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

International Innovation Index

Why is the table on Innovation Index repeated in this article. It already appears the International Innovation Index. --UB (talk) 07:44, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Then remove? The article International Innovation Index was created recently. Is the article really needed? BTW, I found this rankings by Economist. I think it should be added to the article. Oda Mari (talk) 06:35, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

See Innovation is in Business section WHY?

Innovation can be in the Arts ,as well as just doing a common job a diiferent more oratical way. Business section for Innovation why?Thanks!SoCalKid (talk) 20:05, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Innovation and Serendipity

Simply because no one used the word, but it seems to be involved based on the discussions. --Fx303 (talk) 18:18, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Confusing

This page is poorly written and confusing. While innovation may have originated in economics (I don't know) it is widely used in non-business contexts. In fact the dominant usage of the term is outside of economics. So I would suggest putting ('In business') all over the place. Dngrwill (talk) 20:43, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Confusing - example: no-sentence

I don't know what the editor(s) meant here so I won't suggest, but this (long) sentence from the beginning if Introduction (as of March 8, 2011) does not belong to English: In the organizational context, innovation may be linked to changes in efficiency, productivity, quality, competitive positioning, market share, etc. can all be affected positively or negatively by innovative forces. Vmkern (talk) 03:45, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Bot archive

I suggest this talk page should be automatically archived by a bot according to the follow template:
{{User:MiszaBot/config |archiveheader = {{talkarchivenav|noredlinks=y}}
|maxarchivesize = 100K
|counter = 2
|minthreadsleft = 7
|algo = old(125d)
|archive = Talk:Innovation/Archive %(counter)d
}} This will automatically archive all inactive threads older than 125 days and keep at least seven threads on the page. Any objections? --Fama Clamosa (talk) 23:07, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done --Fama Clamosa (talk) 10:54, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Link request

Dear creator of this page, I have a good book related to Innovation, can I place it under external link, please? Jesslynn lee86 (talk) 03:15, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

 Not done Linking to sites that sell books, however relevant to the subject, is against WP:ELNO ("sites that require payment or registration to view the relevant content", "individual web pages that primarily exist to sell products or services"). --McGeddon (talk) 09:11, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Definition\introduction

Hi, the first paragraph of the page is quite confused and not very clear:

Innovation is the development of new values through solutions that meet new requirements, inarticulate needs, or old customer and market needs in value adding new ways.

Innovation is the development of new value through solution that meet new requirements, inarticulate needs, or even old needs of customers and the market. [in value adding new ways seems not very clear to me...]

[...]

Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a better and, as a result, novel idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself. Innovation differs from improvement in that innovation refers to the notion of doing something different rather than doing the same thing better.

Innovation differs from invention, as it refers to the use of a better and, as a result [???? better ==> novel???], novel idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself. Innovation also differs from improvement, as it is related with doing something different, and not with doing the same thing better.

Organizations can improve the quality of innovation through Kirton's thinking style Adaption-Innovation Inventory and measure the effectiveness by applying a Balanced Scorecard as put forth by Kaplan and Norton.

This sentence imho confuses people not expert in the topic who reads the wiki page to have a general idea, and don't add anything relevant to the definition... 79.44.147.228 (talk) 14:32, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

General tidying up and a plea for help in making this a good article

This still remains one of the worse pages in wikipedia, with people putting in their own pet theories, mixing up all sorts of types of innovation, and analytical levels, and including outright wrong statements, such as normative statements that 'innovation makes the world more confortable and efficient'! I tried to tidy, but it needs better referencing. The linked articles are pretty good - maybe we should attempt to pull in summaries from each of the long articles to create a short one. (I was involved in editing this about 5 years ago, when there was a much clearer structure and addressing the topic, and it has since degraded horribly]. The Spanish, French and German versions are much closer to the verison of 5 years ago, describing types of innovation, theories, approaches, etc. Maybe these need re-translated back to the English version 139.191.159.250 (talk) 14:55, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

This article has been vandalised over the years. It is still rather poor. Please help improve

The intro and most of the sections are weak and poorly structured. The worse bit is the part about society, which is a POV, and focuses on technological innovation as purely providing every comfort, and not saying anything about societal aspects or negative aspects of innovation. The sentence "Innovation is the development of new value through solutions that meet new needs, or adding value to old customers by providing new ways of maximizing their current level of productivity. It is the catalyst to growth." belongs in the business section, since it refers to customers and productivity, not society. In the section on sources of innovation there is a random quote about invention in robotics in the middle. We need a diagram of non-linear models - no point perpetuating the linear model!. The article also has no mention of different types of innovation ( radical, disruptive, etc) which a reader would commonly see associated with the term. In the section of measuring innovation there is no mention of patents, a common, flawed way of measurement. There is no section on management of innovation - a key topic for practitioners and students who might refer to it.

It also needs broadened - it covers technological and organisation innovation - but not cultural, political etc. The section on government intervention is also weak with a long paragraph on some US initatives- gov intervention is much older and widespread than made out in the article, and needs a more general paragraph. Overall more citations are needed. I removed this sentace Organizations can improve the quality of innovation through Kirton's thinking style Adaption-Innovation Inventory and measure the effectiveness by applying a Balanced Scorecard as put forth by Kaplan and Norton. again from the intro - it rely is something specific to management of innovation, and belongs in a section with that title. Jamesks (talk) 06:28, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Just made some changes to lead and again, deleted a section that was in brackets for some reason? describing in-articulated and unarticulated? Anyway, the lead still needs work, and I agree it seems to have been vandalized over the years as the comments from the last editor above made.Mrm7171 (talk) 12:53, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

The Innovation Page

Can this page be edited or is it locked? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.29.193.176 (talk) 18:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Can no one else see that this page is very poorly written. If the page is going to be only about innovation in business the name of the page should be changed. My edit of the of the introduction was to begin to create a balanced article in which innovation in business would be a sub heading and the entire article would no longer be written about the economics innovation.

This article is extremely poor and in fact completely wrong. It does not consider the historical use of the word "innovation" but instead adopts all the fluff from management consultants in the past 10 years, which has also obviously been gobbled up by the corporate PR departments. Now every brain pulse is "innovation". Well this is a tragic misuse of the english language and is why many companies are deluding themselves into thinking they are accomplishing something. Steve Jobs never used the word "innovation" and if anybody knew how to make new products and services, he would be the guy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.1.100.21 (talk) 13:00, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Your comment about Steve Jobs is plainly false.

I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things. -- Steve Jobs (Apple Worldwide Developers' Conference, 1997)

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. -- Attributed to Steve Jobs ("The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs", 2001)

Innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea... -- Attributed to Steve Jobs ("The Seed of Apple's Innovation" in BusinessWeek, 12 October 2004)

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations. -- Attributed to Steve Jobs ("Steve Jobs, the Journey Is the Reward", 1988, by Jeffrey S. Young ISBN 155802378X)

The desktop computer industry is dead. Innovation has virtually ceased. Microsoft dominates with very little innovation. That's over. Apple lost. -- As quoted in "Steve Jobs: The Next Insanely Great Thing" in WIRED magazine (February 1996)

I don't understand why Wikipedians are so quick to make pronouncements that can very easily be disproven in a matter of minutes. - Percolaytor (talk) 13:42, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

The introduction should broadly introduce the topic. - and there need not be a mention of economics -- for that see economics of innovation section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Polarfire (talk • contribs) 06:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

My concern is that the edits are piecemeal and unattributed. They are also very personal. I have been deterred from contributing by the defensive nature of edits. It needs a range of innovations and a list of the most significant concepts and authors within the subject. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.76.183 (talk) 15:58, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

It is very bizarre that you should suggest that there is no need to mention economics - innovation is an economics concept. This article should bring together a summary of different approaches, and then allow for larger articles on things like Management of Innovation, Innovation Theory, Innovation Policy, Economics of Innovation, Sociology of Innovation etc (talk) 4 Feb 2010 (UTC)

Innovation is very hard to identify and quantify. Even legal scholars, rarely at a loss for words, have difficulty dealing with it. I don't doubt that this page is going to go through a lot of revision before it even gets close to being adequate. And don't forget that there are many who hold diametrically opposing viewpoints on topics such as this. In those cases the best that can be achieved is a compromise, at worst an edit war. Discussions concerning innovation often take on the characteristics of arguments during the middle ages about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Hi I'm doing a project for ARCH 342 and I noticed that the definition of innovation provided by this page is vague and different from the dictionary's definitions. - Chen —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.27.22.4 (talk) 19:21, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I propose a major overhaul of this page that fits for encyclopedic coverage (concise, easy to read sections, and removal of unsubstantiated claims and too many quotes). What I propose includes a brief beginning paragraph, and the following sections: Term (history, apart from invention and creativity), Inter-Disciplinary Approach (in business, government, society, and real-world examples), Process (subsections: sources of innovation, goals/failures, diffusion, market outcome), Measuring Innovation, Government Policies, and the usual: See Also, References, External Links. -Socipoet (talk) 17:14, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Great work, thanks a lot! --Fama Clamosa (talk) 23:00, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Management of Innovation, Innovation Theory, Innovation Policy, Economics of Innovation, Sociology of Innovation are not appropriate Wikipedia article titles. Instead, they should be Management of innovation, Innovation theory, Innovation policy, Economics of innovation, and Sociology of innovation. See WP:MOS. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:10, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this page kicks off with a poor and rather limited intro paragraph, and continues in a scrappy way. Perhaps less would be more here? Looking at the various dictionary entries, a better definition might be something like: 'Innovation is the process of inventing and beginning to implement, new ideas, methods and things'. Some kind of broad definition like this would at least embrace artistic and social innovation. It may be too complex a topic at this stage – there are clearly utterly diverse perspectives at work. For example: while there is a need to mention economics somewhere under innovation, many would disagree that innovation is just an economics concept - it also has psychological, social, anthropological, evolutionary and creative dimensions. No point in a turf war, or a long debate, or an editing battle; people will just abandon the page and drift away. As it stands, unlike some excellent pages elsewhere, I would not direct students to this particular Wikipedia topic --kscally 17:55, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

hi, I want to say that I agree with the comments above about beefing up the description of Innovation. There are three grammatical errors in the first sentence (words in bold): Innovation is the development of new customers value through solutions that meet new needs, inarticulate needs, or old customer and market needs in new ways. This is accomplished through different or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments, and society. Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a better and, as a result, novel idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself. Innovation differs from improvement in that innovation refers to the notion of doing something different (Lat. innovare: "to change") rather than doing the same thing better. In the above paragraph the word "customers" should be "customer". The word "inarticulate" should be "in articulated" or "those not articulated". The words "old customer" should be "former customer". I would also suggest moving "market needs" ahead of "old customer" because the way the sentence is currently structured it suggests that the market is "old" when that's is referring to the former customer. I also think that the entire paragraph contradicts itself for example this sentence tries to explain what Innovation is: This is accomplished through different or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments, and society. While this sentence tries to explain what it is not: Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a better and, as a result, novel idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself. Innovation differs from improvement in that innovation refers to the notion of doing something different (Lat. innovare: "to change") rather than doing the same thing better. I put in bold the contradictory statements. A new process could be applied to doing the same thing better. Many innovations are just that. Supply-chain innovation for example is in improving how you procure, purchase, ship, sell, bill, pay for goods and re-supply your store. The process is pretty much the same for everyone but how you go about each step and what happens within each phase can be innovative and give you a competitive advantage. You can call it an improvement but if it revolutionizes the industry it's really an innovation. Example below is for Walmart's Green Supply Chain Initiative. Andrewlip (talk) 21:31, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Dear creator of this page, because I think it is very important for all of us, Wikipedia,the most important crowdsourcing platform, should complement and extend the current efforts across all the developed countries, specially the USA Government Innovation and Entrepreneurship programs, allowing the worldwide wiki community to contribute to these global programs, aligning the needs of these programs for massive contributions and the skills, knowledge and prestige of this communication plattform. In order to this can happen, i suggest you to define or create articles for the following topics:

  -innovation policy
  -entrepreneneurship policy
  -redefine innovation to inlude the varieties of innovation instead of having a single  entry point for such a complex, evolving and subjective concept.
  -create a category for the the most important programs in those countries

The following book cites are among the most complete books I have found and I think the readers interested in these topics will find them usefull: Rising to the Challenge U.S. Innovation Policy for Global economy Innovation Policy in a Knowledge-Based Economy SMEs Subnational Innovation Systems and Technological REGIONAL INNOVATION STRATEGIES THE CHALLENGE FOR LESS-FAVOURED REGIONS As soon as these changes are made I will be happy and ready to contribute to such an important project. Finally, I'm sure this will help Wikipedia to reach some of its ultimate goals: to have an important social impact to promote knowledge diffusion to raise money allowing it to remain add free and independent

User:Marcoantonioacostareyes Marcoantonioacostareyes (talk) 23:06, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Merge Innovators

I think the innovators article should be merged in here. It doesn't make any sense as an independent article. Anyone have a pro/against opinion?

If this is a yes, I'll do the textual merge, and get a bot to move all the links to point to innovation and then put the disambiguation page at innovator instead.GliderMaven (talk) 15:09, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I say no, let's leave it, as is. An innovator should be a stand-alone IMO. Please discuss here.Charlotte135 (talk) 22:42, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

• Delete: useless WP:OR stand-alone list per WP:SALAT. No lead scope defined (other than a WP:WEASEL statement at the top) and even with some type of encyclopedic definition/criteria at the top this list would have tens of thousands of entries making it too general or too broad in scope to be of value. Moving the list here will not fix this. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 02:42, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Merge, An innovator is someone that creates or implements a new innovation. Therefore, related to Innovation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Magnavoxx (talk • contribs) 12:51, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

International Innovation Organization

I think it would be better to have a section about International Innovation Organization that actually exercises innovation.

• World Intellectual Property Organization
• Asia Pacific Innovation Conference
• Asia-Pacific Telecentre Network
• International Association of Innovation Professionals
• The International Association of Organizational Innovation
• The International Business Innovation Association
• The Innovation Policy Platform (IPP), developed by the World Bank Group and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
• APEC’s Policy Partnership on Science, Technology and Innovation (PPSTI)
• Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), established in 2012, at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, GGGI is accelerating the transition toward a new model of economic growth – green growth – founded on principles of social inclusivity and environmental sustainability.

(114.36.97.88 (talk) 18:34, 2 July 2016 (UTC)). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.36.97.88 (talk) 18:31, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a directory so such a section needs WP:RS supporting it. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 20:31, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Change in reference list

Hi! The second reference is S. Maranville, not Maryville.

Best

Felix — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.188.47.44 (talk) 10:48, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Shouldn't this include

This page should include some of the most notable innovations ever, shouldn't it? - Shiftchange (talk) 11:53, 27 January 2017 (UTC)