Managing Innovation, 6th Edition

CHAPTER 5 Sources of Innovation

Where do innovations come from? There’s a good chance that asking that question will conjure images like that of Archimedes, jumping up from his bath and running down the street, too enthused by the desire to tell the world that he forgot to get dressed. Or Newton, dozing under the apple tree until a falling apple helped kick his brain into thinking about the science of gravity. Or James Watt, also asleep, until woken by the noise of a boiling kettle. Such “Eureka” moments are certainly a part of innovation folklore – and they underline the importance of flashes of insight that make new connections. They form the basis of the cartoon model of innovation that usually involves thinking bubbles and flashing light bulbs. And from time to time, they do happen – for example, Percy Shaw’s observation of the reflection in a cat’s eye at night led to the development of one of the most widely used road safety innovations in the world. Or George de Mestral, who noticed the way plant burrs became attached to his dog’s fur while returning home from a walk in the Swiss Alps. This provided him with the inspiration behind Velcro fasteners.

But of course there is much more to it than that – as we saw in Chapter 2. Innovation is a process of taking ideas forward, revising and refining them, weaving the different strands of “knowledge spaghetti” together ...