Important Reminder: Your Innovations Are Not Immortal

from the changing-with-the-times dept

Brian sends in a short blog post from Scott Anthony, highlighting a key point we've tried to make around here for years, Your Innovations Aren't Immortal:

Take a deep breath, and repeat after me: "My [business model, product, business unit, brand, offering] has a finite life. I'm going to make that life as happy and productive as possible, but I also have to think about what's next."

This is a major issue, and could be the underlying theme of a good percentage of posts around here. Companies or individuals who think that they have some inalienable "right" to have their innovation remain at the top of the market, even as others out-innovate them. It comes from a massive sense of entitlement, that if you innovated once, no one else should be allowed to out-innovate you, and the government should somehow protect your position as an innovative leader. We've jokingly referred to this as companies charging others with "felony interference with a business model."

Innovation is an ongoing process, and that's true for everyone. It's not a once-and-done thing, and whatever innovation you did yesterday is obsolete. You need to keep innovating. Paraphrasing what someone else in the link above says, you need to innovate at the pace of the market. The problem is that many try to use politicians and the court system to slow down the market, rather than innovating along with it.

Conceptually, this is difficult for many. They feel a sense of accomplishment for what they've done, and would like to have the time to bask in that accomplishment. But history has shown that there's no time to bask -- only time to keep innovating. And while that may not seem to be as much fun, it does give you an ongoing sense of accomplishment and makes the world better for everyone at the same time. Who would complain about that, other than those who can't keep up?

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NY Times On How Innovation Is A Process

from the this-theme-is-growing dept

For years, we've been among a group of folks pushing for more people to recognize that innovation is an ongoing process, rather than a burst of inspiration, as is often suggested. This may seem like a minor point, but it's actually quite an important one when it comes to things like public policy on encouraging innovation, including such things as patent laws. Patents actually do make some sense if innovation really is a burst of inspiration. But when that burst of inspiration is a lot less important than the ongoing process of trying, adjusting, trying, adjusting -- and when things like patents make it harder for people to try and adjust -- then it's important to understand the distinction. Last month, Business Week ran a nice article on how innovation was a process, and now it appears that the NY Times has its own, similar, article. You could say that the NY Times "stole" the idea from Business Week -- or you could just say that both are realizing something important that's quite fundamental, and are doing their best to innovatively get that message out to the world.

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Innovation Is A Process, Not A Burst Of Inspiration

from the the-long-nose dept

For years, we've been pointing out that innovation is an ongoing process rather than a distinct event. While this may sound somewhat obvious, when you combine this with the difference between invention and innovation and the fact that innovation is often the more important piece for overall progress, it's curious that our patent system is designed to protect that initial spark of invention -- at the cost of hurting that ongoing process of innovation by making it more difficult and expensive. Business Week is now running an article that seems to recognize this, as it highlights the importance of the ongoing process of innovation (though, it doesn't get into the question of patents and how they play into things). It does note that too many people are only focused on that burst of invention, rather than the process of innovation -- which is understandable, but problematic if we really want to encourage innovation. It's good to see a publication like Business Week highlight this important point, because as more people start to understand this, it's more likely that they'll understand the dangers of our current patent policy.

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