Innovation Myths
Innovation has gained a sort-of mystical aura in our world. Move fast and break stuff. We recognize and lionize innovators in just about every way possible. The result is a general attitude of innovate or die—if you cannot innovate, then you will not progress in your career or life. Maybe it’s time to take a step back and bust some of the innovation myths created by this near idolization of innovation.
You can’t innovate where you are. Reality: innovation is not tied to a particular place and time. “But I work for an enterprise that only uses vendor gear… Maybe if I worked for a vendor, or was deeply involved in open source…” Innovation isn’t just about building new products! You can innovate by designing a simpler network that meets business needs, or by working with your vendor on testing a potential new product. Ninety percent of innovation is just paying attention to problems, along with a sense of what is “too complex,” or where things might be easier.
You don’t work in open source or open standards? That’s not your company’s problem, that’s your problem. Get involved. It’s not just about protocols, anyway. What about certifications, training, and the many other areas of life in information technology? Just because you’re in IT doesn’t mean you have to only invent new technologies.
Innovation must be pursued—it doesn’t “just happen.” We often tell ourselves stories about innovation that imply it “is the kind of thing we can accomplish with a structured, linear process.” The truth is the process of innovation is unpredictable and messy. Why, then, do we tell innovation stories that sound so purposeful and linear?
Innovation just happens. Either the inspiration just strikes, or it doesn’t, right? You’re just walking along one day and some really innovative idea just jumps out at you. You’re struck by lightning, as it were. This is the opposite of the previous myth, and just as wrong in the other direction.
Innovation requires patience. According to Keith’s Law, any externally obvious improvement in a product is really the result of a large number of smaller changes hidden within the abstraction of the system itself. Innovation is a series of discoveries over months and even years. Innovations are gradual, incremental, and collective—over time.
Innovation often involves combining existing components. If you don’t know what’s already in the field (and usefully adjacent fields), you won’t be able to innovate. Innovation, then, requires a lot of knowledge across a number of subject areas. You have to work to learn to innovate—you can’t fake this.
Innovation often involves a group of people, rather than lone actors. We often emphasize lone actors, but they rarely work alone. To innovate, you have to inteniontally embed yourself in a community with a history of innovation, or build such a community yourself.
Innovation must take place in an environment where failure is seen as a good thing (at least your were trying) rather than a bad one.
Innovative ideas don’t need to be sold. Really? Then let’s look at Qiubi, which “failed after only 7 months of operation and after having received $2 billion in backing from big industry players.” The idea might have been good, but it didn’t catch on. The idea that you can “build a better mousetrap” and “the world will beat a path to your door,” just isn’t true, and it never has been.
The bootom line is…Innovation does require a lot of hard work. You have to prepare your mind, learn to look for problems that can be solved in novel ways, be inquisitive enough to ask why, and if there is a better way, stubborn enough to keep trying, and confident enough to sell your innovation to others. But you can innovate where you are—to believe otherwise is a myth.