FROM DILIP MUKERJEA

"Genius is in-born, may it never be still-born."

"Oysters, irritated by grains of sand, give birth to pearls. Brains, irritated by curiosity, give birth to ideas."

"Brainpower is the bridge to the future; it is what transports you from wishful thinking to willful doing."

"Unless you keep learning & growing, the status quo has no status."

Thursday, March 11, 2010

UNDERSTANDING INNOVATION IN REAL TERMS

In my continuing search for a better understanding as well as multiple perspectives, I certainly like the way Prof Ed Roberts of the MIT’s Sloan School of Management & Chair of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, has described 'innovation', using a simple but apt equation, as follows

Innovation = Invention + Commercialization

A product idea, technology, software algorithm, patent, new business mode idea, or similar invention is not innovation until it is successfully married to a commercialization capability so that it has a positive and material real-world impact.

A case in point:

The Apple Company is recognized as an innovation leader worldwide for products like the Macintosh computer and the iPod.

However, when you think more closely about this with the model of the equation, it is clear that some of the underlying inventions, the GUI (Graphical User Interface) from Xerox PARC and MP3 from Franhouffer Institute, had been around for a while before Apple came along.

But they were merely inventions, and not material innovations, until they were effectively commercialized by Steve Jobs & Co.

[Source: 'How to Build a Successful Innovation Ecosystem: Educate, Network, and Celebrate';]

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