Innovation = Idea + Action
There are thousands of articles and posts on any business site talking about what innovation is, what it is not and why it’s dead. While innovation can mean many different things to different people, at it’s core it boils down to 2 key components: an idea and action to make that idea a reality.
You’ll notice that I didn’t use a term like good, great, grand or wonderful to describe the idea. This is because ideas can only be designated as great in hindsight. All ideas are created in the dark recesses of someone’s mind and many seem brilliant at first and then fade while others seem dull or ordinary at first and blow up into mind blowing successes. Zuckerberg didn’t know he had the foundation for a $100+ Billion idea when he created a website for his dorm.
Similarly, ideas are not unique. I hate to bear this news, but we just aren’t that special. Given the size of the human population, I would guess that every possible iteration to modern technology and improvement on the current state of the world has been consciously thought of by at least one person.
Action is what separates the day dreams from the innovations.
An innovation isn’t an idea. An innovation is a tangible result which can only occur when someone creates something based on an idea. More importantly, the action side of this equation dramatically outweighs the idea side. The flawlessly executed, mediocre idea will trump the brilliant idea with no action behind day in and day out.
Oftentimes the hardest part is picking an idea and getting started. So just screw it, pick one, maybe even pick the next idea you have while you’re in the shower or on your way to work, and actually do something about it. Just make a pact to tell 10 people that you are going to work on that idea (You can post your ideas about What is Innovation to www.thunkmob.com) – this will give you the motivation to at least start working on it.
- ThunkMob
