The need for innovation

First off is to consider where innovation has occurred without getting into a great academic or political debate as to how to precisely define innovation. Innovation has been with us long before any published material appeared or champions advocating the importance of innovation existed. One could say it is part of our DNA!

The earliest recorded civilization developed in ancient Mesopotamia around 4000 BC in the form of urban settlements, irrigation and writing. While agriculture and domestication of animals began around 8000 BC. Going back even further to Paleolithic times when neither the concept or language for innovation, invention or discovery existed, yet these “activities” existed even if not named as such. A few important “activities” resulted in major progress of our earliest human ancestors, such as:

The control of fire
Stone tools
Clothing

Advancing several millennia forward

The compass
Optical lenses
The telegraph

Most would agree that these items helped humankind advance and evolve in many respects. The control of fire provided warmth, light, and cooking. Clothing made of animal skins, that were killed and skinned using stone tools provided protection from the elements and enabled human migration to all parts of the planet. Even our prehistoric ancestors were involved in acts of innovation based on their discoveries and rudimentary inventions.

The compass to enable navigation across oceans; optical lenses for spectacles, microscopes or telescopes; and the telegraph for rapid communication across vast distances previously only accomplished by rider mounted on a horse, pigeons or some type of visual signalling such as smoke signals with all the inherent disadvantages.

For now the differences between discovery, invention or innovation will be somewhat arbitrary but expanded upon later after coming to terms with what is meant by innovation. Innovation and invention will be used interchangeably for now, since as will be shown, the term innovation is a rather nebulous. While invention may be associated with patents or intellectual property, it is noted the concept of patents did not appear until 1474 in Venice (Witty, 2017). Yet these activities did occur!!

Also there is a vast level of difference in the sophistication of these inventions from the beginning of time to the more recent times. Deliberately sharpened tools have been dated from over 2.5 million years ago by chipping flakes off a stone that could be held in a hand and subsequently used for cutting animal carcasses. (World’s Oldest Stone Tools and Weapons Found in Ethiopia)

More background knowledge and understanding was required for the later inventions, for example, optical lenses required knowledge of how to manufacture them (form the shape from molten silicon, polishing, purity of the glass, and eventually the physics of optical lenses to produce the desired results).

Despite the time frame or the level of sophistication required for any invention they all provided value to people by increasing their comfort, safety or survival. So, were any or all of these things innovative? The short answer is yes, even though the term did not exist at the time. The terms invention or discovery did not exist with the coming of stone tools, yet these activities did occur. Without the concept or language of inventions, discoveries or innovations, the value of controlling fire or the making of clothing had obvious value to the people where it had not existed prior.

Moving to current times, we are constantly reminded of the value and necessity of innovation to our survival. In Paleolithic times innovation was necessary to find food, warmth or shelter simply to “survive”. Today we need it to “survive” in a different contexts of our economic survival and overcome a plethora of social issues.

At a time of public budget constraints, major demographic changes and increasing global competition, Europe’s competitiveness, our capacity to create millions of new jobs to replace those lost in the crisis and, overall, our future standard of living depends on our ability to drive innovation in products, services, business and social processes and models. This is why innovation has been placed at the heart of the Europe 2020 strategy. Innovation is also our best means of successfully tackling major societal challenges, such as climate change, energy and resource scarcity, health and ageing, which are becoming more urgent by the day. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament. (2011)

This belief in the necessity and urgency of innovation is recognized universally and is articulated by most countries, companies, NGO’s, academics, researchers, and even for the general public the term innovation rolls easily off the tongue.

Addressing the current and emerging economic, social and environmental challenges requires novel ideas, innovative approaches and greater levels of multilateral co-operation. Innovation and digitalisation are playing an increasingly important role in virtually all sectors and in the daily lives of citizens around the world. As such, policy makers are placing the “innovation imperative” at the centre of their policy agendas. (OECD/Eurostat, 2018, p.3)

Omnipresence of Innovation

Nowadays, place the name of any consumer good into a search engine along with the word innovative and the results are …. well interesting! In today’s commercial world, new and/or updated products continue appearing; marketing firms point out how innovative their product is ad nauseam; governments are at pains to convince voters how their policies promote innovation above those of the opposition. While in the energy sector everyone from environmentalists, academics and CEOs of the fossil fuel industry espouses the importance of being innovative to meet future energy needs.

We have had innovation since stone tools, consider also that the beginnings of language itself as an innovation. Fast forward to current times, we have the problem that the term has become so common that it means nothing. But for humanity to progress, however one may judge progress, we need innovation!

From the simple list given above, can an agreement be made that they were necessary for civilization to advance; and they can be labeled as innovations in their time. The question then becomes what is innovation, what are its characteristics, how do you recognize it, and is it relevant/similar today or has it changed with our technological advancements and clever advertisements? This is not an isolated case of what does a simple term mean with all its nuances. In a 1964 US Supreme Court, Justice Potter Stewart described a threshold for obscenity in a motion picture as follows:

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. (Ward, n.d.)

Paraphrasing this statement in terms of innovation, the shorthand description is innovation and how many people believe they could succeed in intelligibly articulating what it really means in an unambiguous manner. Though most would probably say I know it when I see it.

An attempt will be made to better appreciate what innovation is rather than “I know it when I see it”. The goal is not to provide a simple definitive answer that can be used to cover every case. Rather some thoughts as to how consider what it means in different contexts or situations. For the argument that a simplistic definition of innovation does not help and may hinder any advances we as a society need to overcome a plethora of social issues.

References

Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament. (2011). Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative Innovation Union. [ Source ]
OECD/Eurostat. (2018). Oslo Manual: Guidelines for Collecting, Reporting and Using Data on Innovation (4th ed.)
Ward, Artemus. n.d. Other articles in Judges and Justice [ Source ]
Witty, Michael. 2017. “Athenaeus describes the most ancient intellectual property.” Prometheus 35 (2): 137-143