What’s the difference of creation, innovation, and improvement?
- Creation is making something, like making a pot or a baby.
- Innovation is making something different and new, like making an AI.
- Improvement is making things better, it does not have to be new.
Different and new is relatively easy. Doing something that’s genuinely better is very hard. - Jonathan Ive
Why Innovation matters to business
- Companies want to make more money for a longer time.
- Predicting the future is very profitable.
- The best the way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker
How to do innovation
In Two steps: exploration and exploitation.
Exploration
- Spending lots of time, lots of people
- Vast and diverse information sources
- Fail fast, fail often, fail better
- Mindful reflections (shower thoughts)
- Explaining things, understand by building
- Making dog foods, collecting feedbacks
- Put on polarized opinions on debating.
Exploitation
- Build a product from a prototype
- Grow a market, educate buyers
- Sales genius like Steve Jobs
What stops people from innovation activities?
- Saving energy (all the wastes, and it’s not for better)
- Lack of attitudes (complaints / it’s not my job / it’s above my payroll)
- Risk aversion
- Afraid of failures and punishments
- The pursuit of unification and solidarity
- The pursuit of instant gratification ( exploration is lonely and boring)
- Lack of knowledge and vision
Live in the future, then build what’s missing http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html