Innovation Quotes: Two Different Stages
“Innovations, whether of product, process, or market, always move through two quite different stages. First, someone has to come up with the new idea. Then someone (often someone other than the idea imaginator) has to refine, focus, and implement that idea. And most of the resources are applied during this latter implementation period (…) in many cases, the innovator is simply adapting someone else’s invention to a different set of circumstances.”
Edward B. Roberts, Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
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The notion that much of innovation is the applicaiton of prior knowledge is a pretty widely understood concept. In fact, it has been analyzed and is one of the themes underlying the TRIZ methodology. In this realm, inventiveness is classified in to 5 distinct levels. According to the analysis, over 95% of inventions involve the the reuse of prior knowledge.
James, I agree 100%. However I think that its never a bad idea to emphasize it, after all there are a lot of people out there (politicians, managers) pumping money into inventions while expecting to get returns from innovations.
You are absolutely correct! It is amazing how easily we forget the lessons of the past and get sucked into the traps of our cultural mythology around innovation.