Innovation Is Right Under Your Nose

I had my hands much too full in 1965 to notice, but while I was caught up in the back to back to back to back to back releases of Mr. Tambourine Man (Dylan and The Byrds,) Can’t Get No Satisfaction, Help, The Sounds of Silence and California Dreamin’, Toyota launched the development of the hybrid technology (Prius etc.)

Things we commonly refer to as “breakthroughs” have usually been evolving right under our noses for decades.  Clive Thompson notes in a column for Wired Magazine that the revolutionary iPhone “pinch-and-zoom” was actually pioneered back in 1983.

Click here to read more about what Bill Buxton at Microsoft terms the “long nose” theory of innovation.

The lesson for organizations that seek to be innovative is that it is more about adapting existing or evolving concepts at the margins than waiting for a “bolt out of the blue.”