The Groove Issue 25 - How to Reclaim The Concept of Innovation
Welcome to the 25th issue of The Groove.
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HOW TO RECLAIM THE CONCEPT OF INNOVATION
The word innovation has become both a cliché and an almost sacrosanct term closely guarded by tech and science people, as if nobody else is allowed to be an innovator. The truth is that anyone who can come up with a better or different way to do something that enriches society, helps do something faster or cheaper, solves a problem, connects dots or implements a variety of ideas with a positive impact is an innovator.
Innovation is Nothing New
Paradoxically, the word “innovation” was first used in the middle of the 15th century, deriving from the late Latin “innovationem,” meaning “a novel change, experimental variation, new thing introduced in an established arrangement.”
Thanks to the Industrial Revolution, innovation began taking root as a term associated with science and manufacturing in the 19th century and little by little it became the exclusive domain of businesses that seemed more complex or industrialized than say, an artist or an entrepreneur in any other field.
Yves Klein and le Globe terrestre bleu, 1961; © Photo: Harry Shunk and Janos Kender, © The Estate of Yves Klein
Innovations Can Come From Anywhere
If you think you have to code or send people to outer space to be an innovator, think again.
In 1957, Yves Klein was already working with the idea of making monochromatic artworks, when after an exhibition in Milan he decided that he’d work primarily with blue, a radical move that years later would made him one of the most coveted and expensive artists in the world.
Klein, who was enraptured by the deep cerulean skies of the French Mediterranean, said, “blue has no dimension… all the colors bring with them associations of concrete, material, tangible ideas, while blue is suggestive of the sea and the sky.”
Yves Klein, Venus Bleue (S41), 1962/1982, IKB pigment and synthetic resin on plaster.
He started mixing a special paint with the help of Edouard Adam, a Parisian art paint supplier whose shop is still in business on the Boulevard Edgar-Quinet in Montparnasse, as well as the company Rhône-Poulenc, until he found his perfect shade of ultramarine blue. The exact proportion of pigments, alcohol, and other solvents has remained a secret, with reason: in 1960, Klein was able to patent his very own color: International Klein Blue or IKB.
IKB was considered by some artists and critics to be an outrage and Klein got plenty of heat for it. How, after all, could one artist be so arrogant as to lay personal claim to a color? But history has been good to Klein, and 60 years after his death he is considered a genius and a visionary.
Out of a simple idea related to his art practice, Klein was able to come up with an innovation in a field as unique and seemingly immutable as the color chart! Talk about being a disruptor.
Every Challenge Contains The Seed of Innovation
Is there a palpable difficulty in anything that you do? Any product or service that faces constraints, regulations, or constant problems in its manufacturing or execution? That is one of the sweetest spots for innovation.
Take the example of LEGO, a company whose very same product is an icon of design and has taken many innovative twists from its inception until today.
Ole Kirk Christiansen, a Danish designer, had a business building and selling wooden toys in his workshop, but at the end of World War II, many traditional materials used in the manufacturing of products, including wood, were not readily available. So he started looking for cheap alternatives.
The original plastic LEGO brick came out after a shortage in wood and many failed attempts to create the right piece with a plastic injection molding machine.
In 1947, Christiansen bought a plastic injection molding machine, providing a huge challenge for him as he didn’t know how to work with polyurethane, but at the same time offered an opportunity to do something radically new.
In 1958, years after different experiments, the LEGO that we know today, the one that has the necessary “clutch power” or friction to hold two bricks together, was born.
You could hardly compare a LEGO brick with, let’s say, the search engine capabilities of Google, yet Christiansen has been considered for decades a huge innovator even though he didn’t build a rocket ship or find the cure to cancer.
The company has expanded into so many different products, parks, characters, movies, and video games, and they do so using the same type of LEGO bricks created 60 years ago. They just continue building up different offerings based on their own foundational piece. That is innovation.
Avoid the Trap That Makes Innovation an Exclusive Trait
A few years ago, when I was designing my creativity program, I spoke with someone who told me that there was no way I could teach anyone how to be innovative because that was reserved for “those who advance the processes and efficiencies in technology or complex operations.”
I laughed at the whole thing and plowed through with my class anyway. One hundred students later, they can vouch that not only anyone can be an innovator, but it is precisely this type of thinking that stops people from trying to be creative and come up with new solutions to old problems in any field.
So looking around your practice, business, industry: what can be done differently? Where can you be a contrarian? How can you give more value to your clients? What can be made slightly or radically different? Can you invent a new process for doing something?
Asking these questions allows for your mind to start thinking of where to find the answers, and probably some of the solutions will be steppingstones for improvements and eventually innovations.
Thank you for reading this far. Looking forward to hearing from you anytime.