Ay Ay Ay – phonetics of I I I 
As a certified geek in my past life, as a consumer of technology products, as an inevitable target of zillions of ads – I have come across the word innovation more than the letter e in all the English text I have ever read.
When this popped up again in my conversation today, I stopped to think and hence the following clump of words.
I was a kid once, honestly, and fascinated by inventors – doctors, magicians, astronauts and aircraft pilots too – hence I had a normal childhood. But inventors kept me hooked for the most part. I dreamt of being an inventor someday – and somehow ended up being an engineer You could say that’s close enough, if you compare to me becoming a basket weaver. What happened between these two events is quite hazy.
Now, and for a while, I have been fascinated by innovation. Having ‘engineered’ products/solutions, and now focusing on marketing them I tried to wrap around this concept.
During my engineering I was surprised by instances where someone would suggest a solution to a problem or think of an innovation based on what tools they knew. I came across arguments, if summarized sound like ’In C/C++ we have this facility, so we can do this and that, so let’s do it’ or ‘I know Java swing, we can create an amazing interface with boxes like these, so we should do it’. The solutions revolved around the tools than the problem itself!
Now I come across several business/product ideas by peers, who are excited about. But for most part, here’s how the idea is conceptualized. The ‘market problem’ is faced by the ‘ideator’. Then a viable solution is conceptualized (from the ‘streets’) which works for the ideator’s specific problem/instance, which is then hypothesized to be applicable to a larger market problem. I don’t quite think so. In short, the problem is generated in the lab, and the solution is picked up from the outside world.
I believe innovation is quite contrary. Pick up a problem from the outside world with no bias of what you know or experienced – then create a solution based on what you know or experienced. That’s when the product/solution becomes relevant, useful and unique – hence ‘innovative’.
Why are they inevitable?
I have experienced and observe that every solution (invention/innovation et al) creates another set of problems, which require solutions creating more problems….and this goes on. This opens up doors for more innovations/opportunities. The bigger the innovation, the bigger or more problems it creates. But being cognizant of the fact that each solution potentially creates another problem is crucial.
Here’s what I mean – let’s take internet for example. It was a breakthrough in communication - faster, better, smarter or whatever else….you know it (unless you were born after 1995, and taken it for granted). But what did it bring along with it? standardization problems, security, privacy, uncontrolled content et al, which in turn spun off many industries like storage, security, scalability, search et al, each of which have their own sets of evolving problems and solutions. But why go that far? iPod/iPhone were cool innovations along with iTunes. The world went into another vortex, with tons of accessories, app development, then integrate, then upgrade.
This is innovators’ utopia!
I just seem to have re-iterated the obvious, or have I?
) hear about this golden practice of ‘listening to customers’ to be better at your business. ‘Voice of the customer’, ‘Customer feedback’, ‘Customer is King’ et al are slogans overused in businesses today.
