Innovation as a Four Letter Word

Spending the last three weeks in and out of airports, having the chance to speak to numerous companies, small, large and in between, I have found an alarming trend. The word ‘innovation’ has been used so much over the past few years as the ‘new initiative’ that some companies are beginning to look at innovation as some over-hyped buzzword that has no real ‘meat’ behind the sizzle. In some instances when I bring up the word I get sideways looks that are usually reserved for people who have just had a four-letter word hurled at them. Since Tech Bridge West is all about innovation and exporting IP to create revenue, you can understand how surprised I was at that reaction. Not the fact that the word innovation HAS been overused during the past few years, but that it has already created a backlash effect. Why would that be?

I’ll start with the assumption that the vast majority of R&D personnel have heard the term ‘innovation’ so many times that, in some cases they have become completely jaded by it. I get that. I’ve seen so many Tweets and Blogs and LinkedIn discussion threads on innovation and what it means that I even get nauseated when I try to get through them all. If I had a way to reach through cyberspace you better believe I’d reach through the line and wring their necks. I mean, innovation is such a road term that it can be used in just about any circumstance that has to do with creativity. To me, the term has so much more meaning when it is paired with ‘open’, as in Open Innovation.

Now, this blog, website (www.TechBridgeWest.com) and LinkedIn site has devoted much of its time to helping people understand the power of OI when it is used in a directed fashion, but I fear people still view it as the ‘same old innovation’. If I could figure out a way to shower, shave and dress before I wake up in the morning, now that would be innovation. If I am a food manufacturer and I come up with a way to extend the shelf life of the company’s flagship brand that would be innovation as well. OI takes those same ideas and substitutes the word ‘anyone’ instead of ‘I’. You see, Open Innovation suggests that you are not necessarily going to come up with the next sliced bread, but someone else might. OI is a portal, if you will, for you to find them. So, while innovation may be thought of as a verb, OI is a noun.

Now, doesn’t that make OI easier to understand? Or are you still going to fling four letter words at me?