What exactly is Innovation?

I must have been asked this question countless times. I seem to get two different groups of people; those who are clear in their own mind what innovation means to them and those who seem ‘lost’ and can’t really define innovation.

For me, innovation is the ability to create something new and valuable. By new, it may combine old approaches in new ways or its may be new as in never been created beforehand. By valuable, I mean this it has merit to someone, even if just to the creator of the innovation. Finally, by the word create, I mean an action, not just a thought.

So innovation uses actions focused on value creation.

Of course, the above views only commence a discussion on this topic and I hope that others will share views from their own experiences.

Matthew.