The Myths of Innovation

Preface for the paperback edition

By idolizing those whom we honor, we do a disservice both to them and to ourselves…we fail to recognize that we could go and do likewise.

—Charles V. Willie

The other day, while dropping off my dry cleaning at the laundromat, I noticed a bright neon sign. It read, “Innovative dry-cleaning service,” which, given my authorship of this book, piqued my curiosity. With shirts and pants in hand, I went to the counter and inquired, “So tell me, what are your dry-cleaning innovations?” The young lady behind the register offered only a blank stare. I had to point to the sign and explain what the word meant before she acknowledged, as if I were an idiot, that it was just marketing. As far as she knew, as daughter of the store’s owner, there was nothing innovative in how they cleaned clothes (nor how they helped customers).

The word innovation has fallen on hard times. There is no innovation superhero, flying around at innovative speeds, using innovative ninja moves to prevent abuse of the word. Simply saying something is great doesn’t make it so, yet as the success of marketing and advertising demonstrates, this doesn’t stop people from trying. The i-word is thrown around so frequently it no longer means anything.

Today, and for a long time, the majority of what most people believe about ideas—from where they originate to how they are made into things that change ...