Innovation

I used to worry that I am not the most creative fellow around. I see others coming up with brilliant new ideas and wonder why I lack that gene. With age comes wisdom…or if not wisdom then at least some experience and some insight that one didn’t have earlier in life.

I used to think that Innovation meant brilliant new ideas, ideas that nobody had ever thought of before. The stories are well known of course – Steve Jobs and his legacy of Apple products, musicians like Paul Simon, or Mozart, artists like Cezanne or Michelangelo.

I have come to believe sometime innovation is as described above – blinding new insights and ideas. Sometimes, however, innovation comes from the application of good ideas to new environments. It doesn’t have to be a brand new genius idea – it can be the recognition that one business idea in a particular industry would be genius if applied to another industry in a completely different way. Take a musical example (since I am reading a book about Paul Simon). Simon took some music from Bach, combined with some jazz from Alabama and created something new, just by experimenting and applying it differently. This is innovative!

So – every once in a while – I give myself credit for applying some cool ideas that came from the mind of an earlier genius, and applying it to new circumstances. That’s innovation too!