While watching entrepreneurs pitch their business earlier this week at the Pitch Club in Melbourne Australia, and colleague and I were disappointed at what some people believe to be innovation.
Shannon from Shannon says and I agreed that what many people call innovation is simply – different.
Here’s a clear delineation of the two which is a startup blog mashup of multiple dictionary definitions.
Different: unlike in form, quality, amount, or nature. Distinct or separate. Unusual or differing from others.
Innovation: a creation, new device or process. The result of study and or experimentation which improves the desired outcome / usage of said device, process or creation.
Sometimes we only need to understand the true meaning of our words to determine if we are ‘on track’.
I think you also need to think about WHO is saying these things. I just put up a new design of a site and a designer said that it wasn’t very original – now, it’s not like I copied anything, the site is just quite simple.
Then I spoke to another mate who is in business on Skype and he said that it looked great, and that it might be because he is from another industry. It is easy for people to get stuck in a way of thinking and become over-attached to the current trends in a market, while the rest of the population couldn’t care less.
I’ve gotta keep reminding myself to step back a bit and look at it from a more balanced perspective instead of spending too much time worrying about the trends.
Hi, re Pitch Club (pitchclub.biz) and innovation a couple of things. Innovation doesn’t have to be about a new widget necessarily as per the definition. A new business process or model can be an innovation. Certainly there is a continuum of quality re this with any new business presentation.
My experience shows that there is little in new innovation (eg: The book, the train track, TCP/IP, solar power), most is a re-organisation of stuff we already have.
Pitch Club promise relates to edutainment on pitching, quality networks and opportunities.
Any disappointment on your part should be considered with respect to your expectations. If you expect it to be an inventors, you will be of course disappointment. itching entrepreneurial ventures is, wile in the same field, a separate and unique activity.
Hope that helps.
Peter Christo
Pitch Club Founder.
Hey Peter,
Thanks for your input. I agree strongly that innovation is not about widgets, and have said above that a ‘process’ can also be innovation. Have a closer look at my definitions again.
My point related to the quality of the ‘pitches’ given by the 8 ‘contenders’ – of which I thought their presentations were not ‘average’ and only one or two of the concepts were ‘innovative’. Inventing has nothing to do with it.
As far as pitchclub ( http://www.pitchclub.biz ) is concerned I think it is conceptually great, well run, a good format and a great networking evening. I enjoyed it and I’ll be there next time too. I’ll make that clear in another blog entry.
Cheers, Steve.
I agree Steve, many people mistaken innovation for ‘different’…basically they’re just taking an old idea and tweaking it here and there and voila! an ‘innovation’ occurs…..
Just my two cents on this 🙂