In·no·va·tion. (Or what the hell is going on?)

Noun.

1.

Something new or different introduced.

2.

The act of innovating: introduction of new things or methods.

Innovation, say that again? I keep hearing that word so often lately that is giving me a headache. One of those frenzy -- “should I be doing this? Am I totally out? Am I a dinosaur? Did I get old to fast? When did I miss the train?” -- Kind of headaches.

Lately I’ve been bumping with a lot of Ad people that have become the lead innovators at the companies they work for. Director of Innovation. Strategic Head of Innovation. Innovation Designer. Innovation Creative Director… etc.

I assume that all of them have that one thing in common: they innovate.

Now, the question is, how the hell do they do that?

I have a theory that very few people (except the Steve Jobs of the world that is) have no clue on how to actually make innovations happen -- other than hoping they hire someone -- who will keep coming up with good and profitable products or services.

An innovation is sort of an invention that is useful to the world in any kind of way. Perhaps the invention improves some product, process or service (for the public) that already exists, hence making it much better than before. And if that’s the case, then that invention evolves into an innovation.
And the author (or team of authors) behind that new invention, are called Innovators.

The other day I sat during a whole day at SCAMP, a series of conferences curated for people (like me) who are looking for inspiration outside their bubble. Among the people that were invited “were creatives, innovators, publishers, artists, curators, strategists, creative technologists, UX evangelists and entrepreneurs."

Some of the speakers were really great and shared good ideas and insights with the audience, new things that are happening out there, new projects, crazy projects, not yet done projects, all really very exciting.

One of them – a millennial genius - came in at the end. He was witty, fast and creative. He has a company that works on this type of “innovations” but between my exhaustion towards the end of the day and his techie-language sophistication, I didn’t understand as much as I would’ve liked to, but at some point there was a genius bike that tweeted during a road trip throughout the USA, then it was a propeller and then I think there was also a project for a tweeting airplane -- or something.


Cool. Wonderful. Exciting. Fun. Amazing. Truly.

Why can’t I come up with those ideas? Does it require like an engineering technology degree of some kind? Or only like regular-millennial-extremely-computer-savvy set of skills? How do they know how to make these things work? Who are these Bots that keep coming up? Where are they? Are they going take over the world or just have a portion of the land, like the aliens on District 9?

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Should I know? Am I an idiot not to know?

It’s all very scary and it puts me on a lot of extra-pressure that I can’t handle now, in fact I also feel bad for the super-smart-speaker-man, I wonder how much pressure does it put on him -- to come up with the next best thing? Given the fact that we’re living in this extremely fast paced world, where the star invention of the moment can be as ephemeral as the next tweet coming in our timelines.

Past news. So yesterday. It’s kinda sad.

So when SCAMP ends I go get a beer to calm me down and it suddenly hits me.

Why? Why is it important? What do we do with it? Is it going to cure aids eventually? I really have to think hard about all of this, I do, I am sorry, a tweet blast? Yes cool, a million people tweeting for a cause, then what? The iPhone is a genius it’s way smarter than the users, and what’s up next? Is he going to prepare milkshakes? Is he going to do reiki to get rid of back pains?

I don’t get it. I am confused and I don’t say this in any disrespectful way for all the innovators out there, they are great and have my admiration.

But how about reading Dostoievsky? Watching an old Bruce Lee flick? Exfoliate your feet with sand? Watch a fucking sunset? Or simply look around?

Life is moving fast, innovation big or small can be great and obviously the future of many businesses depends upon their ability to innovate. Competition is fierce I know and knowledge spreads quickly. So this “innovation” practices are critical to survival.
I am not so lost, all of this I know, but shouldn’t we stop for a second and understand why. 

Why is it so good and necessary? Is it really?
 I’m just askin’…

Innovation is hard to schedule.
- Dan Fylstra