It appears indeed that innovation is a concept that everybody talks about without ever bothering to give it a precise meaning. I attended the launch meeting of the European Alliance for Innovation the other day. After several hours of discussion, nobody was able to define innovation. I tried to make up a definition on the spot. Here it is: innovation is the process whereby an entreprise - the engine of the economy - puts itself into the position to generate wealth in a sustainable manner. I am not sure what this attempt is worth... However, it appeared important to me to link innovation to the economic cycle and more particularly to the entreprise as driver of the economy. In my mind, I envisaged innovation in parallel with creativity (the process whereby an artist - the driver of the artistic cycle - puts himself into the position to generate beauty in a sustainable manner). Is it correct to link innovation so strongly to the economy and wealth generation? I think it is. After all, patents that are meant to serve as proof of innovativeness also foresee that their holder is solely entitled to reap wealth from his innovation for a given period of time...The Oxford Dictionary merely refers to innovation as the act of bringing in new methods, new ideas. A rather bland definition for a concept around which International Conferences gather for hours at end...
Submitted by phw on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 23:00.
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Content subject to copyright, Harley Lovegrove 2011
It appears indeed that innovation is a concept that everybody talks about without ever bothering to give it a precise meaning. I attended the launch meeting of the European Alliance for Innovation the other day. After several hours of discussion, nobody was able to define innovation. I tried to make up a definition on the spot. Here it is: innovation is the process whereby an entreprise - the engine of the economy - puts itself into the position to generate wealth in a sustainable manner. I am not sure what this attempt is worth... However, it appeared important to me to link innovation to the economic cycle and more particularly to the entreprise as driver of the economy. In my mind, I envisaged innovation in parallel with creativity (the process whereby an artist - the driver of the artistic cycle - puts himself into the position to generate beauty in a sustainable manner). Is it correct to link innovation so strongly to the economy and wealth generation? I think it is. After all, patents that are meant to serve as proof of innovativeness also foresee that their holder is solely entitled to reap wealth from his innovation for a given period of time...The Oxford Dictionary merely refers to innovation as the act of bringing in new methods, new ideas. A rather bland definition for a concept around which International Conferences gather for hours at end...