Is ‘New’ Better?
If there ever was a message that deserves to be repeated more often these days, it’s the one captured expertly in The Innovation Delusion by Lee Vinsel and Andrew L. Russel.
In it, the authors take a hard look at the idea behind innovation in a thought-provoking way. One which I hope to emulate in this short read meant as an appetizer for that main course of a book.
What does it mean to Innovate?
Today, there is an undeniable hype around the word Innovation. From corporations to start-ups, everyone is trying really hard to outdo their competition by bringing more innovation to the table. However, as per the nature of buzzwords, we might have forgotten what it actually means. From Latin innovare, innovation means to create something novel, or new.
But since when did the urge to create new things became the driving force in our society?
In today’s vocabulary, innovation has developed a secondary definition. Not only does it conjure up images of cutting-edge technology and pioneering dare-devils, but also an underlying feeling that it is all bringing us faster into the future. In other words, that it comes with progress!
But progress means something else altogether, that is to make things better.
We certainly like to think that new ideas carry the intention to improve an existing condition, so innovation and progress seem intrinsically intertwined. But it is not always necessarily so.
Having new things does not always mean we get better as a whole. And while no one could deny that the focus on innovating is important, one could argue that it can never come at the cost of progress. So far, I’m sure that all of this seems quite ordinary, right?
Have we forgotten about progress?
I challenge you now to think back on the last time innovation came barging through the door for you. Did it actually promise progress? And if so, did it deliver? Or could it be that our culture is glorifying new for the sake of being new?
Let me kick things off with an example (one of many).
Browsing through Linkedin, I stumbled into the following link:
While aesthetically elegant, it does not take more than a rainy day to realize that regular blinds are not only more practical but also cheaper to install and maintain. So why put effort into making impractical and expensive solutions, for problems that were never really there?
Well, for the same reason an electric car manufacturer decided to shoot one of their sports model into space. You guessed it. Because it’s fresh and new!
Of course, you could say these kinds of projects are important to foster creativity without an end goal. Or that it’s all ‘to raise awareness’. And I would agree. What we cannot do is use these as excuses to put innovation as the sole driving force of everything we do.
The dichotomy between innovation and progress is one that deserves a deeper dive, and thanks to Google’s Books Ngram, we can track word usage since the1800’s.
Bear with me now.
The correlation seems to be evident once we reach the 1960s - The Decade when GPS came to us, the first ATM, the first man on the moon, and the internet was born. After this point, a clear decline in the usage of the word progress is noticeable, and coincidentally a rise in the use of innovation.
After such a golden age of technological advancement, why are we talking less about progress and more about innovation?
While the larger ramifications of this interesting coincidence would make a topic for a more thorough discourse (one deserving of a true expert’s participation), the data seems to support the idea that we have coupled the two meanings together, and explain why we tend to assume that innovation equates to progress. One could even dare to suggest that the first is gradually replacing the second in our lexicon.
Another word that often is brought up with innovation is disruption.
As far as buzzwords go, this might be one the emptiest. While by itself it’s considered a negative trait, married to innovation, it lives up to the highest standards of marketing pitches in the tech industry. Disruptive Innovation!
But when was the last time that a truly disruptive innovation came about? Something so ground-breaking that took the market by surprise and changed the playing field altogether? Something that history would remember as a turning point. The internet perhaps? Telegram (no, not the app)? Electricity maybe? Is there even a post-60s innovation that can make this podium?
In my opinion, the conclusion to draw here is not that we have stopped innovating since the 60s. Nor even that progress slowed down since then. Although some great minds, like economist Robert Gordon, seem to believe that’s the case.
What are the dangers?
What I find important is the realization that progress is a long, gradual process that relies on a far slower-moving mechanism than innovation does.
Innovation lives on a much shorter life cycle, one whose yields come much faster. We know almost instantly when we have something new to show, but to know if that same thing will create value and bring forth progress - that is a much harder question. One that takes time to fully be clarified, or to allow for hindsight to unequivocally answer it for us.
The true danger of letting innovation become our only driving force is that it shifts our mindset to a short-term thinking one. When we’re so busy rushing to put out newer things, we forget to check if these things are even valuable. We stop looking ahead. We miss the forest for the trees.
Is it that simple, really? Of course, it bears a larger complexity that a blog post can’t capture. But even then, as obvious as this may be to some, it eludes many.
Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and authors constantly spread the gospel of innovation and some even admit that the end goal is no longer to create value
One such tech guru writes on Twitter:
“Tech companies must keep shipping cool new things or die. Not because customers require it, but because the best employees do”.
If your best employees are bored, they need to feel like their work is meaningful, not to be distracted by shiny new trinkets.
Working with customers myself, I believe the same holds true for them. The drive to be innovative can’t bind us to short-term thinking. We must be honest and ask ourselves if the urge for innovation (or its short-term mindset) is making us push pills for pains our customers don’t have, just because there is a new pill.
For an industry constantly bombarded with distractions, hypes, trends, and buzzwords, it seems there is only one way to stand out though. To be fresh. Because being better takes longer (and harder) to prove.
And so, the focus shifts from creating long-term value to being first with the next big thing, regardless of its value. Sometimes, regardless if it’s even here yet.
Ironically, a mindset so focused on making the future happen now also presses us to focus on short-term thinking. A culture where it’s all about the next big thing.
The next new gadget. The next buzzword. The next quarterly numbers. The next elections.
But it’s not just about winning the elections because you need to create confidence with the electorate. Not just about meeting the targets of the next quarter, but setting a vision for sustainable growth. Not just about creating new products, but making sure there is a need and value for them.
It’s not all about the next big thing.
Sometimes it’s about the little, less flamboyant things we practice invisibly every day. Things like culture and mindsets.
These all stack up to produce great results and progress, but only for those with the vision and patience to stick for the long-run.
