Today's Globe and Mail has an article that says Canada "suffers from a chronic innovation gap." Innovation is a popular topic for economists, but fundamentally governments can do very little to increase innovation because fundamentally it occurs at an individual level.
I am fascinated by business leaders who are innovators and lately I've seen some articles that got me thinking about what it takes to come up with innovative ideas.
Obviously there was a lot written following Steve Jobs' death last month, and Steve clearly rates among the most successful and influential innovators of our time. From inventing a computer with a mouse that was easy to use, to iPods, iPhones, and iPads, Jobs proved his innovation success by the number of companies who copied his products.
Jeff Bezos, head of Amazon.com, is another such innovator. Wired has an interesting interview with him which is worth the read. After taking the book selling business and putting it entirely on the internet, he expanded to selling music, toys, and electronics. He then took his back office computer capacity and sold that as cloud computing services.
A less well-known innovator I recently read about runs an investment firm in Vancouver. Chad Wasilenkoff has purchased a bankrupt paper mill in Quebec and is modifying it to produce wood pulp for rayon fabric instead of paper.
These guys are in different industries, but I see some common threads in their innovation.
1. Innovators approach problems from a new direction.
Chad Wasilenkoff looked at the pulp and paper industry and instead of trying to solve the problem of how to make money from paper, he asked how he could make money from wood pulp. That gave a bankrupt paper mill a new lease on life by producing rayon for the fabric industry.
Jeff Bezos looked at Amazon.com and instead of asking how to sell more books, he asked how to leverage Amazon's existing strengths to make more money. That led him to sell other products instead of just books, and eventually led him to rent out his back-office computer capacity to the world.
Steve Jobs looked at personal computers and instead of asking how to make one cheaper or more powerful or faster, he asked, "How can we make a computer easier to use?" Not many people were asking that question at the time. Most of us assumed computers were difficult to use because that was just an inherent characteristic of computers. Steve didn't assume that.
Which leads to my next observation …
2. Innovators Break Assumptions
One way to approach a problem from a different direction is to find the assumptions that everyone else is making. Once you've uncovered the assumptions, you can choose which one(s) you want to break.
Steve Jobs broke the assumption that computers will always be difficult to use and created the Macintosh. He broke the assumption that music cannot be sold one song at a time and created iTunes.
Chad Wasilenkoff broke the assumption that pulp mills can only make paper.
Jeff Bezos broke the assumption that online retailers only have expertise about retailing and he launched the cloud computing industry.
If you're going to challenge assumptions though, you will find yourself being challenged by those who hold those assumptions. You had better be prepared to fight opposition.
3. Innovators Fight Opposition and Are Willing To Go It Alone
You don't challenge established assumptions, especially assumptions that competitors have large amounts of money invested in, and expect to have huge crowds following you. Innovators persevere through opposition and roadblocks and are confident enough in their convictions that they can go down their chosen path alone if necessary.
Chad Wasilenkoff had trouble getting funding for his idea, despite the fact that the price he had negotiated was less than the value of the land and scrap metal of the mill alone.
Postscript:
The National Post has another interview with Chad Wasilenkoff here.
