It’s never too late to innovate

Categorized Under: Uncategorized No Commented

Here’s the first post of many leading up to the conference briefly exploring various aspects of Innovation.

What is Innovation?

The dictionary describes innovation as the “Introduction of new things or methods”. This definition looks at the final output; in an ICT or software sense, a completed product.

But what about the other factors that went into making that completed product, the people, the late night meetings and code that needed debugging at 4am?

Although some could say this is part of the development process, one could certainly view development as being encapsulated within this ‘Innovation’ term. Through continuous development we can achieve innovative solutions.

Thinking about Innovate Solutions…

So if innovation is about the ‘introduction of new things or methods’ this raises some questions;

(a) What am I introducing?
(b) Who am I introducing it to?
(c) Is my ‘new thing or method’ helping/solving/refining/addressing?
(d) Can I leverage technology to help me?
(e) Can I be innovative in being innovative?

All valid questions really. Here’s a simple diagram focusing on 3 areas which illustrate the concepts involved in innovation very well:

Innovation

Now… Innovate!

So we have a definition of innovation and some things to think about during the process. It seems simple enough, and is a little bit of an oversimplification, however not as much as you’d think. But it involves a fundamental change in focus for many people.

If more of us continually ask ourselves or our organisations these 5 things each and every day we may well achieve more as individuals, as companies, as a sector and, in fact, see New Zealand climb the global innovation stats on the back of an innovative ICT sector.

So no matter where you are….. always remember…. Its never to late…..to Innovate!

Comments are closed.