How innovation dances to the rhythm of tech

Technology is the best friend of innovation. Mostly, they go hand in hand and life without the other wouldn't be easy. Like Gin to the tonic, Peanut butter to Jelly or Lemons to the Lemonade. Let's make a point here. Most people mistakenly believe that technology is the same thing as innovation and that technology means 'technical' and hence, that every innovation would ultimately be a technological innovation. But technology is no synonym for innovation and innovation can happen even without technology. And actually, some technologies are not even innovative at all. 

Innovation activities concern the introduction of new devices, methods or materials,- something that is novel and useful. Actually, innovation starts even earlier: in the phase of  product development. When it comes to the art of innovating, the creator runs through a very complex creation process. The complexity of that process is comparable to composing a song. Even though the 'usefulness' of an innovation might not be fully covered by the example of a song, there are many parallels of developing a novel product or design and the creation of a new styled song (no yet existing genre) involving different instruments, styles and effects.

Innovations historically did not happen because people sat around a table discussing innovations strategies and aligning the company's long-term plan according to their new product lifecycles and innovations. Most of the biggest innovations do not origin from big corporates with the aim of profit making at all but from individuals who simply had great ideas and the skillset to realise them.

So is a songwriter: a creative individual, mostly talented, with the specific skillset to create melodies, texts and harmonies and bring them to life in a song. Why is creativity a skillset necessary to create and innovate? Creativity can be seen as the production of novel and useful ideas whereas innovation simply is the successful implementation of these within an organisation. 

But a song can't be played with only one person. Similar to the entrepreneur trying to onboard personnel for his new venture, the creator (of a song or a product) needs to convince other people from his creation and motivate them to work towards a common goal. To successfully develop a useful and usable product, an interdisciplinary team of people with different backgrounds and competences needs to work together to design, engineer, manufacture and sell the creation. When the songwriter can't find singer, guitarists or drummer, his song would remain notes on a scratch paper. 

But none of this is yet sufficient to develop a successful song that is going to be played in the radios. It is far more complicated than that. When we see a product or listen to a song on the radio, we do not picture the whole process behind it and the critical thinking and decision making that has formed the creation to how we can access it now. When a creation must fulfil the condition to be useful, this also implies that it offers value for the user. Many circumstances must be considered: What is the current cultural context and taste of the user? Will they like the song? Are we doing something completely new and risky or should we play safe with a classic 4/4 rhythm? Imagine, we find ourselves back in 1950 and we produce the first electronic music song ever. To ensure that the creation will be accepted and listened by the audience, the creator needs to understand the changing customer preferences and needs. But what if the song is something completely new? A new musical orientation of the artist and no one ever had taken this direction?

In innovative product developments, decisions must be taken in a situation of uncertainty. Innovation is about creating something novel and new. In the ideal situation, it will be so novel and useful that it can disrupt the market. So how does the creator that this new style will be accepted,- his song will be played? Experimentation. This is vital phase of product development invites the potential user to take part in the creation process. Human-centered design and the lean startup method give hundreds of examples how user and usability testing can ensure that customer will adopt the novelty. But even in our music parallelism, songwriter, singer and musicians sit together with producer and potential listeners, switching effects, fine-tuning the melodies and changing the sets. In some cases though, it might be difficult to assess the experiment with the right user, in the right context or in the right stage of the product development and if done in one of these unfavourable situations, it could harm the innovation potential by eliminating a novice idea. This is when the creator becomes a risk taker and innovator.  

Again, we are back in 1950 and the first synthesiser ever has just been created (by the way: a technology and an innovation). The song will revolutionise the whole music business because it will be the first electronic music song ever and a style that had never been done before. This song creates a new music genre and more followers will join the wave. So where is our friend technology here? We have created something new by making use of different tools: instruments, sound engineering systems, synthesiser, sounds, technological equipment etc. These tools are the technology. A guitar is a technology, a synthesiser is a technology, microphones, amplifiers etc. all these tools were used to create a composition of electronic sounds and beats that, put together, create a song that disrupts the music industry. An innovation must not necessarily be a technology, but technologies are always used or at least partly applied to develop innovations. And often, technologies are also innovations. 

So what the beats and sounds are in our song, is technology for innovation. And when the beat drops, we disrupt the market.

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