Every time a revolutionary product or service is introduced to the market, the first word on everyone’s lips is innovation. Technology and innovation are often seen as going hand in hand, with many often assuming the two are inseparable. Seeing as we operate in a digital society, technological developments are often seen as progress. However sometimes technology isn\u2019t for the benefit of society, and when linked to innovation it can have negative connotations attached to it.<\/p>\n
So the question remains, is technology the same as innovation? To answer this let\u2019s look at what innovation encompasses:<\/p>\n
Since design thinking was first introduced, innovation actors have promoted divergent thinking and processes. We\u2019ve seen many examples of companies getting tunnel vision, where they only see things from one angle and approach it the same way. Innovation aims to challenge this by diverging from the norm. It enables us to turn a problem on its head and look for alternative approaches that weren\u2019t previously considered. This is primarily a mental exercise that can be used across both work and personal life. It\u2019s an approach that requires us to step back and question our assumptions and traditional ways of thinking.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Curiosity is a common trait among those who like to find unique solutions to difficult problems and come up with new ideas. Innovation and curiosity force us to look at the world differently and to have a thirst for knowledge and progress. As soon as we stop questioning things and accept everything at face value, we are missing out on discovering new approaches to tackling problems. Curiosity ensures we don\u2019t become complacent. Curiosity in innovation is alike to exploring an unknown city and exploring amazing, untouched landmarks that were previously unknown.<\/p>\n
The best approach to finding innovative solutions is to have a versatile and diverse team around you. Bringing people together who have different perspectives and expertise can result in engaging discussions that help us avoid tunnel vision. Despite each individual thinking differently, they become united by their emotional intelligence. Multidisciplinary teams harness ideation and prefer to work with multiple ideas and not stay too focused on one. Multifunctional teams work best when senior leadership take a step back to enable the team to flourish. They need the freedom to test ideas within being micro-managed.<\/p>\n
The key to successful innovation is to test, iterate and repeat. Testing new ideas and failing fast is the key to unearthing new ideas and opportunities. Teams need the resilience to continue experimenting, failing and learning. They need to take part in continuous testing of prototypes to make the judgement call as to whether a new solution properly addresses the problem being faced. Resilience during the testing phase requires optimism to bounce back from setbacks and failures. The ability to do this is what separates the innovators from the rest; they understand the need to test, fail and bounce back. This is part of the learning process and once overcome, enables the creative thinkers to thrive.<\/p>\n
What you\u2019ll notice about the above four aspects of innovation is that none of them necessarily require technology. Innovation at its core is a human-centered perspective. It involves testing, iteration, a willingness to learn and the desire to be part of a diverse team. Innovative ideas can sometimes lead to the creation of a new technology, however it doesn\u2019t equal innovation. Innovation is a process that can be applied to your day-to-day life if need be. Technology is sometimes used to implement innovation, however the technology doesn\u2019t necessarily produce the innovation. It\u2019s a useful way to test and iterate at a quick rate, however it\u2019s not the end product. Innovation isn\u2019t always complex, nor does it need to include technology that end consumers can use. Innovation can oftentimes simply lead to solutions that weren\u2019t previously considered and can be applied for the benefit of target consumers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every time a revolutionary product or service is introduced to the market, the first word on everyone’s lips is innovation. Technology and innovation are often seen as going hand in hand, with many often assuming the two are inseparable. Seeing as we operate in a digital society, technological developments are often seen as progress. However sometimes technology isn\u2019t for the benefit of society, and when linked to innovation it can have negative connotations attached to it. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":83848,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[174,176,177],"class_list":["post-83097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-transformation","tag-business","tag-digital-transformation","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnnyhuntington.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnnyhuntington.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnnyhuntington.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnyhuntington.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnyhuntington.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnnyhuntington.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83849,"href":"https:\/\/johnnyhuntington.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83097\/revisions\/83849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnyhuntington.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnnyhuntington.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnyhuntington.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnyhuntington.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}