Innovation

Not so very long ago, there were no information technologies, television companies, airline travel was rare and luxurious.  Our parents were born into a world even more different from today, where television had yet to be invented.  When our grandparents were born, there was no internal combustion engines, aeroplanes, cinemas or radios.  Our great grandparents lived in a world with no light bulbs, cars, telephones, bicycles, refrigerators, and their lives probably had more in common with a Roman peasant than with our lives.
In a relatively short period of about 150 years, our lives at home and work have been completely transformed.  The reason - through Innovation.

All economic and social progress ultimately depends on new ideas with possibilities for change and improvement.  Innovation is what happens when new thinking is successfully introduced by companies and organisations, ideas that have been realised and implemented in practice.  The reason why innovation is so important has to be seen in relentless demands   made of contemporary organisations as they face the challenges of a complex and turbulent world.

Most attempts of innovation fail.  History is littered with unsuccessful attempts to apply, often very good ideas.  Innovations are found not only in the activities that organisations do, but how they do them.  The innovation process is rapidly going through a period of change largely through opportunities in using new internet and visualising technologies that can access ideas from around the world.  This means the potential sources of innovation are growing rapidly.  There are more scientists and engineers alive today than in the past years - now it seems that knowledge is now ever more valuable than physical assets.  

Innovation is becoming more internationalised, with important new sources emerging from China, India and elsewhere.  Our understanding of innovation, developed over the past century or more, might be applied to deal with the restless transformations and turbulence that we WILL witness in the global economy of the future.

We need innovation, we should thank all those innovators and students of innovation, smarter governments, Universities, businesses, smarter individuals who are willing to step outside the box who make our journey so exciting and rewarding and that is essential to our social and economic progress.  The future of innovation - where its benefits flow and costs are reduced - lies in the wise organisation of knowledge.