Danger: Demolition area

I have this personal problem with the idea that most people have when they think of innovation... let's make a little experiment: what do you think innovation implies? Does any of these options come to your mind?

The creative genius Your vision can come either in a modern or a traditional flavor. It doesn't matter if you see characters from the cartoons in a sophisticated lab or Leonardo drawing flying machines, the point is that you think that there are only a few fortunate individuals that can create magnificent inventions out of nothing... and let's face it, most of us are not part of that very exclusive group.

Cutting edge technology You see nanomaterials that react with solar light, complicated manufacuring processes with robots all around, futuristic cars, microchips, devices for producing clean energy... And then you realize that unless you are part of Nokia or the NASA and have unlimited R&D budget, you have pretty much no chance of bringing something new to the table.

The next billion dollar idea You look around and you see your iPhone, your iPod, or both. Maybe you bought them online... let's say through e-bay. And if in fact you did, you probably used your credit card or PayPal. Further more, it was mailed to your door by DHL or FedEx or UPS. Even if you don't have an iSomething (I don't!), you check the webpages you visited recently and there's a huge chance YouTube and Google are among the first. All of these things are so natural in our lives that we just can't tell how we lived before, and most of all: how did the people that created them see the opportunity to innovate.

The whole idea of this post was to tear these paradigms down. Last year, futurethink -an innovation consulting firm- asked 50 top excecutives what did innovation mean to them. One of the most common answers was "to address customer needs and generating valuable products or services".

Of course I'm not saying I wouldn't love to wake up in the middle of the night with a brilliant business concept... but in the meantime it's relieving to feel that we can all innovate somehow.