Sunday, April 18, 2010

Chapter 17: Innovation

Innovation the workplace was something that was discussed in Chapter 17. Innovation was defined as something new brought to the table that the public can use. Chapter 17 explained innovation in various different ways. First of all, it cleared up two myths about innovation. According to the text, innovation took preparation—it was not something that came out of thin air, nor was it something that could be regulated. From there, innovation was then described as a growing tree. Innovation, as it was written in the chapter, stemmed from the seed of hard work, dedication, necessity, curiosity, and more.

This chapter also discussed that there were several challenges that one could come across when being innovative. These challenges included: finding an idea, developing a solution, funding, reproduction, reaching for customers, beating competitors, timing, and keeping older customers happy while trying to garner new ones through innovation.

The last aspect of innovation that the chapter discussed was what made innovation effective and grow. There was only one answer to that, which was management. Training the workers, having good leadership, and making sure that creativity was not stifled, were a just some of the things that were needed to perform effective innovation.

Seeing as this part of the chapter talked a bit about Apple and its innovation, I found a video online which showed how Apple’s products have evolved throughout the years and how they kept innovation alive. Since this was made a year ago, products such as the new iPhone and iPad were not shown yet.

4 comments:

  1. I think the video shows a lot about innovation. There will always be something better and faster that will replace another. Especially in technology, obsolescence is inevitable. There will always be new ideas to a project, and nowadays, it's hard to find a product that has stayed the same throughout its product life.

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  2. Speaking of innovation, I found the video we watched in class interesting. I like how the example of the mountain bike showed that innovation is not made for the public but by the public, same idea with the "rap" example.

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  3. I liked how you included a video. It was interesting to see just how much computers have changed in the last 30 years or so.. It makes me wonder what the future will bring! They say that since the iPad, Apple is going to have a hard time coming out with any really new products for awhile, since basically all their new products are based off the iPod, which was the most innovative product they created. I guess we will just have to wait and see...

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  4. Just like the creativity process, innovation also requires certain training and experience to cultivate and grow. Though some "innovative" ideas may seemingly come out of thin air, making that idea into something tangible definitely requires some work and elbow grease.

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