There is a priority need to understand and be able to articulate the new imperative for innovation and what exactly we mean when we talk about innovation.
We have a challenge to avoid being caught in the trap of many who use the term without any clear sense of what they mean by it adn what strategies, structures, skills and behaviours are most likely to support innovation rather than impede it. We need to be clear that research is an important part of the innovation process, but it is not the whole process.
Most importantly, we need to be clear about the nature of the innovation process that drives the creation of well over ninety percent of our new products and services. This process usually starts with a commercial business that has a revenue flow and a customer that has a new need for which a new solution needs to be found.
Less than five percent of new products and services flow iin a linear fashion from a new idea in the mind of a researcher in some type of laboratory. Raising the understanding of Canadians about the important distinction between these two views on innovation is critical to our efforts to improve our capacity to grow innovative enterprises. |
