I’ve been hearing a lot of talk around the office lately about Innovation. This subject is pretty close to my heart…and I’ve got some pretty strong beliefs about what innovation is and is not. For now, though, I’ll just let someone else do the talking:

“For a company, innovation is something of a two-edged sword: it is nice to think creatively about the future, everybody likes brainstorming, but really changing the communication, marketing, products, or production processes in a company is quite another thing. Real change involves letting go of set structures and cherished habits. While beginning something new, the old is inadvertently killed and buried. It is important to be aware that often, change involves a kind of mourning process as a metaphor, since one can recognize the same stages of shock, denial, anger, and resignation.

With a real innovation you can touch the very foundation and identity of a company. This can result in a huge and irrational resistance to the designer. Often, it is necessary to endlessly keep explaining the benefits of the innovation in order to persuade people to accept the new design. This is a slow process, but people must get used to the idea on an emotive level before they can really embrace the innovation. In the worst case, there could be some kind of organised resistance to change, which can be very effective because organizations are, by their very nature, built to perpetuate a stable situation. The wrath of an organization scorned can be terrible.”

Kees Dorst, Understanding Design: 150 Reflections on Being a Designer

Well look at that, more than 200 words about innovation, and not a single mention of technology. Innovation is about people and use…technology is a mere detail. We’ll talk about this more later…