Tim Kastelle has a good post about Empathy and Innovation. I'm fond of talking about "relationships before ideas" and Tim seems to be in similar territory.

One of the supposed challenges of innovation is getting ideas to spread and Tim argues that empathy is pretty key to that, especially if you're into Mark's Herd worldview.

He also points out that not all innovation is good. This shouldn't need saying but innovation-bores often seem to separate innovation out as inherently wonderful and detached from the rest of life. Empathy might have some part to play in separating good from bad - and in connecting innovation to our lives and purposes.

Tim links empathic innovation to the blurring of boundaries between companies and their customers, another good point.

I think if we had more conversations about what we really care about, we might find innovation happens pretty much spontaneously.