Jack Leith points to Scott Berkun having a go at the myths of innovation. Good stuff especially how he takes down the notion of the gifted genius having an epiphany in favour of seeing how ideas rise incrementally out a context.
I’ve been thinking for a while now that an awful lot of talk about innovation seems to reflect a scarcity viewpoint: it’s terribly hard; you must have a rigorous process or you’ll miss something; you’d better put someone in charge of it or it won’t happen; Britain (insert your country here) must become more innovative or else. Yadda Yadda. I prefer to take a more abundant view that innovation happens really easily when we deal with our real needs and passions. Much talk about championing innovation seems to me to involve a lot of chest thumping but not much connection to reality.