Innovation is like a salmon

Many when they hear that you work in innovation immediately get very romantic ideas about using all types exotic technologies, doing lots of R&D, experiments in places with slides and ping pong tables as well as launching new mind blowing business products. So if innovation would be a fish, people would think it is a dolphin. Large companies would be like whales, sharks, schools of sardines or whatever comes to mind.

The reality is that innovation is like a salmon swimming up a river. Everybody takes the easiest route while you choose to go against the stream, knowing very well the sea is in the other direction. You never know if you will hit an insurmountable waterfall, if your idea jumps out just when there is a bear to grab it, if the river turns out to be too swallow to continue,... Innovation is not for the faint of heart.

Innovation is like a salmon that against all odds finds the perfect lake and is able to produce offspring and generate an exciting future for a new generation of fast growing revenue generating ventures.

Innovation is like a salmon which is growing inside an artificial fish factory that is able to grow exactly to what the market wants at unseen costs and in unseen times. Innovation is some times not sexy because you focus on the “boring problems in life” like producing food. However if you find a scalable solution to what many want, you can disrupt the market of any other edible fish.

Innovation is like a salmon which looks on the outside just like any other fish but which has under its skin a colour and taste which is hard to find somewhere else. Innovation is never boring, especially if you can surprise customers who never experienced it. Innovation is something that when you ever tasted it, you want to have more of. Innovation is writing a blog post about fish and making others jealous because for as much as their jobs are like sharks, sardines or whales; they secretly wish they could be like a salmon.

The good news is that innovation is not a salmon, it is an attitude which when practised can be extremely rewarding to anybody, even if it feels like you are swimming up river and are working on the boring problems in life. So what are you waiting for?