Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs

Preface

On Innovating Effectively

In the middle of August in 2012, Congressional approval rating hit an all time low.1 This is saying something—the same figure has been less than impressive in earlier eras. Yet the United States Congress isn’t the only institution with lukewarm support. People expect very little good news about the wars being fought (whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, or on Terror, Drugs, Poverty, or Ignorance). The promising Arab Spring has given way to a recurring pessimism about progress. Gnarly health problems are on a tear the world over—diabetes now affects over eight percent of Americans—and other expensive disease conditions such as obesity, heart disease, and cancer are also now epidemic. The cost of education rises like a runaway helium balloon, yet there is less and less evidence that it nets the students a real return on their investment. Police have access to ever more elaborate statistical models of crime, but there is still way too much of it. And global warming steadily produces more extreme and more dangerous conditions the world over, yet according to about half of our elected “leaders,” it is still, officially, only a theory that can conveniently be denied.

And yet . . .

We steadily expect more from our computers, our smartphones, apps, networks, and games. We have grown to expect routine and wondrous stories of new ventures funded through crowdsourcing. We hear constantly of lives around the world transformed because of Twitter or Kahn Academy or ...