Evan on Engineering Software

The term "innovation" seems to be increasingly in vogue these days.  For example, Amy Rowell, a friend from the days when I first started writing about CAD, is executive editor of Innovate Forum, an on-line magazine about innovation.

Over the past year, when I've heard people talk about innovation, I've sometimes felt a bit like the child in the Hans Christian Andersen tale, the Emperor's New Clothes.  I find myself asking the seemingly simplistic question "what do they mean by innovation?"

I was reading a paper tonight that helped me to understand this rather basic concept a bit better.  The Structure of Invention, by W. Brian Arthur, has a rather obvious theme, given its title, and starts off with a nice clear statement:

Schumpeter famously divided technological change into three phases: invention (the creation
of new technologies); innovation (the commercial introduction of new technologies); and diffusion (the spreading of new technologies).

In this case, Schumpeter is the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter,  a contemporary of Keynes, and regarded by many (including, for example, Peter Drucker) as a modern prophet.

Schumpeter's definition of innovation is quite a bit more involved than Arthur hints, but has as a central feature the commercialization of new technologies.  Innovation is a much more subtle thing than invention.

In following a few leads on Schumpeter, I found that there are a wide variety of classic definitions for innovation, and just as many variant types of innovation.

One interesting definition from the realm of network theory, as posited by Regis Cabral:

"Innovation is a new element introduced in the network which changes, even if momentarily, the costs of transactions between at least two actors, elements or nodes, in the network."

If you look at the world of CAD as a network, connected by shared data in common formats, this definition takes on an interesting significance.

Wikipedia has a rather good article on innovation.  Definitely worth a read, if you find yourself thinking about these things at 2:30AM on a holiday weekend, as I occasionally do.  While you're there, check out Warnock's Dilemma, which will nicely explain why posts such as this get almost no comments.