Innovation is about finding a better way of doing something. Like many of the new development buzzwords (which many of them are over-used on many business documents), the concept of innovation originates from the world of business. It refers to the generation of new products through the process of creative entrepreneurship, putting it into production, and diffusing it more widely through increased sales. Innovation can be viewed as t he application of better solutions that meet new requirements, in-articulated needs, or existing market needs. This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments and society. The term innovation can be defined as something original and, as a consequence, new, that “breaks into” the market or society.
Innoveracy: Misunderstanding Innovation article points out that there is a form of ignorance which seems to be universal: the inability to understand the concept and role of innovation. The way this is exhibited is in the misuse of the term and the inability to discern the difference between novelty, creation, invention and innovation. The result is a failure to understand the causes of success and failure in business and hence the conditions that lead to economic growth. The definition of innovation is easy to find but it seems to be hard to understand. Here is a simple taxonomy of related activities that put innovation in context:
- Novelty: Something new
- Creation: Something new and valuable
- Invention: Something new, having potential value through utility
- Innovation: Something new and uniquely useful
The taxonomy is illustrated with the following diagram.
The differences are also evident in the mechanisms that exist to protect the works: Novelties are usually not protectable, Creations are protected by copyright or trademark, Inventions can be protected for a limited time through patents (or kept secret) and Innovations can be protected through market competition but are not defensible through legal means.
Innovation is a lot of talked about nowdays as essential to businesses to do. Is innovation essential for development work? article tells that innovation has become central to the way development organisations go about their work. In November 2011, Bill Gates told the G20 that innovation was the key to development. Donors increasingly stress innovation as a key condition for funding, and many civil society organisations emphasise that innovation is central to the work they do.
Some innovation ideas are pretty simple, and some are much more complicated and even sound crazy when heard first. The is place for crazy sounding ideas: venture capitalists are gravely concerned that the tech startups they’re investing in just aren’t crazy enough:
Not all development problems require new solutions, sometimes you just need to use old things in a slightly new way. Development innovations may involve devising technology (such as a nanotech water treatment kit), creating a new approach (such as microfinance), finding a better way of delivering public services (such as one-stop egovernment service centres), identifying ways of working with communities (such as participation), or generating a management technique (such as organisation learning).
Theorists of innovation identify innovation itself as a brief moment of creativity, to be followed by the main routine work of producing and selling the innovation. When it comes to development, things are more complicated. Innovation needs to be viewed as tool, not master. Innovation is a process, not a one time event. Genuine innovation is valuable but rare.
There are many views on the innovation and innvation process. I try to collect together there some views I have found on-line. Hopefully they help you more than confuze. Managing complexity and reducing risk article has this drawing which I think pretty well describes innovation as done in product development:
8 essential practices of successful innovation from The Innovator’s Way shows essential practices in innovation process. Those practices are all integrated into a non-sequential, coherent whole and style in the person of the innovator.
In the IT work there is lots of work where a little thinking can be a source of innovation. Automating IT processes can be a huge time saver or it can fail depending on situation. XKCD comic strip Automation as illustrates this:
System integration is a critical element in project design article has an interesting project cost influence graphic. The recommendation is to involve a system integrator early in project design to help ensure high-quality projects that satisfy project requirements. Of course this article tries to market system integration services, but has also valid points to consider.
Core Contributor Loop (CTTDC) from Art Journal blog posting Blog Is The New Black tries to link inventing an idea to theory of entrepreneurship. It is essential to tune the engine by making improvements in product, marketing, code, design and operations.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Rechargeable Battery is One Long Filament—and You Can Cut It as Needed
Jan. 13, 2022
This rechargeable battery is fabricated as an arbitrarily long, drawn-out string and can be cut without damage or leakage.
https://www.electronicdesign.com/power-management/whitepaper/21214090/electronic-design-rechargeable-battery-is-one-long-filamentand-you-can-cut-it-as-needed?utm_source=EG%20ED%20Analog%20%26%20Power%20Source&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CPS220111031&o_eid=7211D2691390C9R&rdx.ident%5Bpull%5D=omeda%7C7211D2691390C9R&oly_enc_id=7211D2691390C9R
What you’ll learn:
The unique concept of a rechargeable battery made as a thin fiber.
How the battery is fabricated using conventional fiber-drawing techniques.
Details of the electrical and mechanical performance of this fiber battery.
Some of the unusual demonstration apps for this battery.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Check Out This Picture of a Single Atom
It’s tiny, but it’s visible
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a17804899/here-is-a-photo-of-a-single-atom/
Tomi Engdahl says:
THE LIES THAT POWERED THE INVENTION OF PONG
A fake contract masked a design exercise–and started an industry
https://spectrum.ieee.org/pong
Tomi Engdahl says:
From engineering ‘guilds’ to open source, how Bloomberg’s developers are driving innovation
ZDNet speaks with Adam Wolf, head of software infrastructure at Bloomberg Engineering, about the business of building and deploying systems to meet the needs of the rapidly evolving financial sector.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/from-engineering-guilds-to-open-source-how-bloombergs-developers-are-driving-innovation/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chinese researchers claim electroculture works as theorized
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-chinese-electroculture-theorized.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/the-runners-high-may-result-from-molecules-called-cannabinoids-the-bodys-own-version-of-thc-and-cbd/
Tomi Engdahl says:
World’s first…
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1334629833323925/posts/4691455374308004/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/27/thats-no-moon-its-an-algae-robot/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/26/better-farming-through-electricity/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/new-2d-material-is-stronger-than-steel-but-as-light-as-plastic/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://m-cacm.acm.org/magazines/2022/2/258230-reimagining-chess-with-alphazero/fulltext
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.hackster.io/news/engineering-students-tackle-the-noisy-problem-of-urban-drone-use-and-perhaps-flying-cars-4450457d4baf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Some will be remembered for their intellect alone. To be recalled for both your brain and humanity is much rarer.
Emotional intelligence: Why each of us should aspire to be more like Richard Feynman
https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbigthink.com%2Fpersonal-growth%2Frichard-feynman-emotional-intelligence%3Futm_term%3DAutofeed%26utm_medium%3DSocial%26utm_source%3DFacebook%23Echobox%3D1644040788&h=AT3L2QfJH3Ge1Iy3J3kDf1QvLNdFUs6PHlkD_cnKANKybzGpB6msSowSyO7jtzSlC-Ieyl-NWMXSA-8ht3TiAX5UOyrAXoEwLLHxuSKn-Np30gYe4EaflWsOPDF2lmyqUw
The physicist was both a gentleman and scholar.
Nothing helps as much in a job search as a letter of recommendation (except, perhaps, being related to the hiring body). Such letters are critical for getting into institutions of higher learning and landing new gigs. While politics exist in every industry, recommendations offer a person the opportunity to champion an intern or younger colleague. That is certainly the case with Robert Oppenheimer’s letter written for Richard Feynman.
What you’ll notice is not how much Oppenheimer expresses his admiration for Feynman’s intellect as much as his personality traits, the nature of his character. Today, we recognize Feynman’s greatness thanks to his earnest and approachable teaching of physics as much as his humility, the man who once remarked that “it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.”
Oppenheimer notes Feynman’s ability to work with colleagues and the “big shots” on whose shoulders the young physicist was standing on. An unfortunate reality of science (and academia at large) is the territorial nature of its elite. To be able to work with top thinkers in any discipline and not only not threaten but be embraced by superiors is a skill few accomplish. At this young age, Feynman dialed it in.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/07/as-light-as-plastic-as-strong-as-steel/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/07/move-aside-solar-were-installing-an-algae-panel/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/paralyzed-patients-walk-swim-and-cycle-after-getting-spinal-cord-implant/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/10/making-light-of-superconductors/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How trying to predict the future can transform your memories
Whenever you’re surprised, there’s a good chance that your brain is busy tweaking your memories.
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/false-memories-hippocampus/#Echobox=1644440487
Tomi Engdahl says:
Study raises new possibilities for triggering room-temperature superconductivity with light
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-possibilities-triggering-room-temperature-superconductivity.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://bigthink.com/the-past/smartest-person-world-isaac-newton/#Echobox=1644248633
Tomi Engdahl says:
Eviation’s Maiden Flight Could Usher in Electric Aviation Era Disrupting the entire industry will take more than one flight, however
https://spectrum.ieee.org/eviations-maiden-flight-to-usher-in-era-of-electric-aviation
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amy Edmondson – The Power of Psychological Safety
https://www.nbforum.com/newsroom/blog/amy-edmondson-the-power-of-psychological-safety/
What is psychological safety and why is it such a topical matter for organizations today? Amy Edmondson, the #1 management thinker and Harvard professor is a pioneer in the topic. Based on our earlier masterclass with Amy, we here give you an introduction to the basics of psychological safety.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This is how the Latin alphabet evolved over the last 3,750 years
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/from-greek-to-latin-visualizing-the-evolution-of-the-alphabet/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/14/predicting-the-future-hows-that-working-out/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.edn.com/why-cross-pollination-not-engineering-silos-benefits-in-career-path/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/what-is-the-singleton-hypothesis-and-what-does-it-mean-for-the-future-of-humanity/
Tomi Engdahl says:
150 year old painting appears to show a woman using an iPhone
https://www.indy100.com/viral/painting-woman-iphone-1860#Echobox=1644740999
A painting from the 1860s has a detail seemingly swiped from modern times: a woman hunched and walking with her eyes seemingly glued to a phone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/13190-ultranopeita-transistoreja-nanolankoja-venyttaemaellae
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lepht Anonym has spent the last 14 years of their life implanting more than 50 chips, antennae, and magnets into their own body.
A biohacker implanted over 50 chips, magnets, and antennae in their body to become ‘posthuman’
https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftrib.al%2F5s9THy0&h=AT1y8vn86jzLhr9NStFhNzzxO83gYz7cQrsVZ7orgw85i48ALVTKjYK_nVweLUa_Bkx5hf-TFZagOL_P-hUH-vkVLXsgx7mZQ0kC0_H4V0_jHnc6PH8QuBlHULyn25mZ5w
Lepht Anonym is a British, transhumanist biohacker.
They implanted a variety of electronic devices into their own body.
Their goal is to use technology to go beyond the physical and mental limitations of humankind.
“I’d like to say I did it because I follow a grand tradition of self-experimenters in science, or that it was because practical transhumanism is more than a philosophy to me (it’s my life), but at least partly, I did it for kicks. I just wanted more senses; still do,” Anonym wrote in their blog, Sapiens Anonymous.
“Lepht Anonym is a faceless, genderless British biohacker. It lacks both gods and money, and likes people, science, and practical transhumanism,” they also wrote.
Some will label them a cyborg, but to transhumanists, they’re “posthuman.”
For now, Anonym prefers another term — a “grinder,” meaning a hybrid of both human and machine.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-molecule-pave-mini-transistors.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/researchers-have-found-a-way-to-regrow-teeth/
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Math Neurons” Fire Differently Depending On Whether You Add Or Subtract
https://www.iflscience.com/brain/math-neurons-fire-differently-depending-on-whether-you-add-or-subtract/
Mathematics is a strange beast. It uses our language, but it isn’t quite the same – our brains hear it completely differently from normal speech. For example: when we hear a sentence like “cats like warm milk,” our brains process that information mostly in the left hemisphere. Something like “eight plus one is nine,” though, will fire neurons in both.
A new study, published this week in the journal Current Biology, has dug even deeper into Your Brain On Math – and it turns out that as far as your neurons are concerned, not all equations are created equal.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/physics/domain-walls-the-strange-new-quantum-object-created-by-scientists/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.businessinsider.com/transhumanist-implanted-50-chips-in-their-body-to-become-cyborg-2021-12
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://futurism.com/the-byte/lab-grown-wagyu-steak?utm_campaign=trueanthem_AI&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/technology/time-crystals-may-soon-be-used-in-real-world-applications/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://scitechdaily.com/a-quantum-physics-approach-to-a-singularity-problem/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Everything You See Is From 15 Seconds in the Past, New Research Claims
And that’s probably the reason why our vision doesn’t constantly make us throw up.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a39024288/vision-15-seconds-in-the-past/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Your brain might be a quantum computer that hallucinates math
There’s a code for arithmetic hidden inside your head
https://thenextweb.com/news/your-brain-might-be-quantum-computer-hallucinates-math#Echobox=1644971346
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.hackster.io/kate-vasilenko/tiny-ml-air-writing-recognition-with-nicla-sense-me-ae6a11
Tomi Engdahl says:
This E-Nose Sniffs Out the Good Whiskey It can identify the brand, region, and style of whiskey with high accuracy
https://spectrum.ieee.org/electronic-nose-whiskey
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aleksis Salusjärven kolumni: Seitsemän sekunnin muisti – mitä tapahtuu, jos keskittymiskyvyn alamäki jatkuu
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12279268
Lyhytvideot ja pikaviestit ovat looginen lopputulos vuosikymmenten ajan lyhenneestä keskittymiskyvystä. Olemme astumassa muistin jälkeiseen aikaan, kirjoittaa Salusjärvi. Kolumnin voi myös kuunnella.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The idea that university degrees don’t matter is a Silicon Valley fantasy
https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/25/the-idea-that-university-degrees-dont-matter-is-a-silicon-valley-fantasy/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
Silicon Valley loves to celebrate the cult of the dropout — the inspired entrepreneur who decides that traditional education isn’t for her because it teaches her nothing of relevance, slows her down, and, in a world of readily available information, no longer gates learning resources like it once did.
Legendary advocates of the dropout cult range from Peter Thiel, whose Thiel Fellows program pays students to take a year out of college, to informal mascots like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, who never completed their college degrees but actually vigorously advocate for higher education.
Silicon Valley’s undisputed leading startup accelerator is Y Combinator. Its prolific success ranges from huge hits like Coinbase, Brex, DoorDash, Airbnb and many more unicorns. Young aspiring entrepreneurs apply for Y Combinator in the hopes of receiving seed funding, mentorship and networking opportunities to help create the next unicorn.
To understand the cult of the dropout, I took a deep dive into who actually succeeds at Y Combinator, and the results nearly made me fall out of my chair – and I was already a big proponent for undergraduate degrees.
The dropouts are no ordinary dropouts – they had won places at the most prestigious universities in the world and took high school extremely seriously.
Firstly, demographics: The average Y Combinator founder that created a unicorn was 28.1 when they launched their company. However, the average Y Combinator founder of consumer technology unicorns was 22.5 (fresh out of college).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Inorganic borophene liquid crystals may provide a superior new material for optoelectronic devices
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-inorganic-borophene-liquid-crystals-superior.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Inorganic borophene liquid crystals may provide a superior new material for optoelectronic devices
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-inorganic-borophene-liquid-crystals-superior.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-topology-crucial-role-laser.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/01/researchers-build-neural-networks-with-actual-neurons/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-essential-vannevar-bush
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-sensor-disease-severity-rapidly-lactate.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Breakthrough discovery in light interactions with nanoparticles paves the way for advances in optical computing
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-breakthrough-discovery-interactions-nanoparticles-paves.html