Invention vs Innovation – the constant clouding
Invention vs Innovation is something that many people are constantly clowding. What’s interesting is hearing how people see the difference between innovation and invention.
This started off by a post by Mike Masnick, of TechDirt, on Why the Segway failed. Clearly the Segway and it’s ability to maintain balance through computer programming was a step forward in innovative history. But what happened? The Segway didn’t move forward due to innovation.
I posted Masnick’s article on Twitter (what can I say? I liked it). It spread, like any tweet, and Brandon Kelley picked it up, pointing me to an interview he did with Dean Kamen. The interview, I think, was about innovation…about half way through, they went into a spew how Kamen’s company is innovating, which I feel is slightly off, but on track. They touched briefly on the Segway and Kamen’s feeling on it. Kamen’s point was simple – society needs to change. This simply is incorrect.
The point of innovation is actually adapting technology to the market needs. Insulin pumps clearly had a medical need. However, judging from this description a “big blue brick” clearly did not have a market need. Kamen mistook the insulin pump as a need that people needed to adapt to. But what actually happened was innovation: the pump changed. It became more practical to use. Today, it’s as simple as a quick shot, which you can hide in your pocket until the time of need. The original need, an insulin pump, never changed. If you attempted to release it again, as a “big blue brick” it would, again, be rejected by society. The market didn’t change. The invention didn’t change. It was innovation that changed the way the invention worked to make it more market savvy.
Innovation isn’t about changing society. It’s about the invention changing to society’s needs. It’s about the invention adapting to become something society will accept, often by becoming more compact/portable or simple more affordable.
Back to the Segway — it was clearly an inventive step forward, but it didn’t meet any market needs. Who needs to pay five grand to stop walking? Who needs to pay five grand to walk 12mph? Motorcycles cost less than the Segway.
The invention — the ability for a computer to self collaborate equilibrium and maintain balance — was an amazing step forward. But the innovation, a wanna-be scooter (?) … an alternate method of walking (?), clearly did not meet any market needs. And so, this is why it didn’t make any headway.
Braden Kelley:
Hello Philip,
It’s “Braden Kelley” –
There are indeed lots of different definitions of innovation.
You can see mine and a link to a bunch of others in under 140chars from a contest, here:
http://www.business-strategy-innovation.com/2009/06/definition-what-is-innovation.html
I think what Dean was saying was more that certain inventions challenge society’s ability to absorb them, and that gamechangers can take up to twenty years or more for people to become comfortable with.
For example, it took 20 years or more for the mobile phone, MMORPGs, digital music players, and more to reach widespread acceptance.
All the best,
Braden
Posted on July 31st, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Philip G:
Hey mate. Welcome to me site. I admit, not much here .. yet.
You’re almost there, but not quite. I was around during the rise of mobile phones. It, again, wasn’t a migration of society changing, but the technology changing to meet the person’s needs. Who wanted to carry a giant phone that required it’s own carrying case? Only a select few I knew. Then it turned into a brick (literally), a few more jumped on. After a while, cell phones became so small, society was able to accept them as a whole because it was *then* they became convenient enough to carry around and use.
(not to mention poor receptions, drop call issues, dead zones, etc)
It didn’t take 20 years for society to adapt to cell phones. It took 20 years for cell phones to becomes convenient enough that people were willing to supplement them with (or even drop) their land lines.
You have the right idea in your video, but you missed the point where it’s technology, not society, that evolves within innovation. Sure, society may take a few to realize the usefulness of some solutions (Facebook, Twitter, ShamWow), however, it’s always been the innovation that manages to get the solution into the true market place.
Heck, just today I saw an infomercial about some hangers. Super bloody cheep for what they were offering, and quite an inventive product, but due to lack of proper innovation, they are stuck in an infomercial that does nothing but makes the product look cheaper(less valuable) than it really is.
Posted on July 31st, 2009 at 5:01 pm
fill:
Merci pour cette article, un info utile merci !
Posted on March 14th, 2010 at 7:20 am
Custom Motorcycle:
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Posted on April 6th, 2010 at 6:36 pm