What is innovation?

Hey there, it's 6/19/2024 and I was returning from the supermarket with stuff I bought for the dinner.

I go the the supermarket regularly, and I don't like much, but please don't telll my wife :)

On they way back home, lost in my thoughts, I had an idea for a new article, to talk about innovation.

You may think: "what a heck"

But there is a story behind it and I will tell, stay with me. But before the story that inspired me, let's talk about innovation.

Have you asked yourself what innovation is?

If you google it you will get:

Looks simple, and clear, right? But why I always had the impression that innovation is much more than that? And I kept thinking about that, why do I have a feeling that the "innovation" word is overused and try to sell something that is not there?

I asked couple of friends the question: "what is innovation?" and I got different answers, and one answer, quite interesting, was about that innovation was related to the context of the company, so what you do to innovate in this company, may be not an innovation in another company.

But in seeking of the truth I continued digging into innovation, and I had a decent dialogue with myself:

So, if innovation is something new, the second company that copies the idea and improve a little bit is not innovating anymore... humm maybe not...

and what if I have a solution that is working on paper and I create a software that does exactly the same on a mobile, is this innovation? but the problem was already solved? so maybe innovation is not only about solving problems

After a while (still going back home from the supermarket... it's ~3 kilometers or ~1.86 miles come on) a question came to my mind:

What is important for the human being?

Health?

Time?

Money?

Relationship?

Having fun?

Hummm.... I think I can get somewhere here...

So I thought, what if I consider innovation solutions that allows the human being to have more health, more time, more money, better relationships and having more fun....

This looks like innovation to me, things that brings more value to people, because in the end it's all about people, do you agree?

So going deeper, if I implement a solution that allows people to be diagnosed in seconds instead of minutes, this is an innovation, right?

If I create services that allows retirees to earn more money additional to their pension, this is definetly innovation?

What if I create a solution that allows childreen to learn 5x faster and having more time for fun?

I'm satisfied to where I got with my thoughts (I got home already). I'm more than happy to connect and chat about it, that an awesome topic.

I was almost forgetting... so my inspiration for this article was once I was going to the supermarket (I told you, married life demands that, don't tell my wife) and I saw a guy, an elder, with plastic bags on his shoulder leaving the supermarket.

So he tied all plastic bags and balanced the weight to his chest and to his bag, enabling him to take back home a heavy weight which otherwise would have damaged his hand to hold the bags. That was to me a great innovation, he solved a big problem to him, with a simple solution. A problem that I had for long time and the solution was always in front of my eyes and I never thought about that. whyyyyyyyyy???????????

See you on the next article.

I hope you liked it and it gave you some food for thought.

Ciao.