Peter Denning, Director of the Cebrowski Institute for information innovation and superiority at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, discusses the difference between innovation and invention in this article for the Wisconsin Technology Network.
"One of the pitfalls that many people fall into is to confuse invention and innovation. They are different. Innovation is process and not a product. Some managers think that innovation means a clever, novel form of invention. They will stress skills like problem solving, out of the box thinking, and conceptual blockbusting. All of these skills can produce ideas. But ideas are not enough, as adoption is the real test of innovation.
He also has valuable insight on the organizational challeges of bringing disruptive ideas to market. Speaking to delegates at the World Technology Network Summit in November 2005, he said, "Most of the attention has been on business policies and processes that encourage innovation. That's only half of the picture. The other half is the people of the organization, the human capital. If they don't have the right skill set, organization policies will have marginal effect." To make serious progress, Denning says, we have to understand what those skills are and cultivate them in our people.
This paradox between invention and innovation causes a great deal of frustration and often involves a great deal of time and expense. Researchers often turn out many new ideas only to find out that that they are not commercially viable or accepted. "Good ideas don't automatically win. Someone has to help them win," says Denning.
via the always excellent The Innovation Insider
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