The Hindu Business Line - Defining innovation - August 19th Consultant R.Sidhar puts together this interesting collection of quotes along with the obervation that one of the things that differentiates innovative orgnaisations from the rest is that they have a shared vision of what constitutes "innovation". Our favourites? :

- "Innovation is going outside the box (framework) to create solutions and implementing them. It's creating opportunities and the environment for change and learning." - Smithsonian Institution (Office of Finance and Administration)

- "Innovation is the transformation of thoughts to new ideas, the application of these ideas to fulfil goals and therefore improve the current business or create new business." - R.J. Reynolds Research & Development

- "Implementing creative ideas to produce new and improved processes and products is innovation. This includes better ways of doing our jobs and new tools to make us more productive." - The Clorox Company, Research & Development

Sidhar goes on to explain that many people create confusion by interchangeably using words such as idea, creativity, and innovation. His differentiation of these three words is actually quite good :

"An idea is a prescription for action. By definition, an idea must change people, places and situations. Creativity is about new ways of looking at issues. Therefore, a creative idea is a new way to handle people, places and situations. Innovation is implementing the creative idea and benefiting from it. Implementation is the key to innovation. "

His article goes on to discuss the various barriers to innovation - and there are a lot of exposed deep insights in the quotes he's collected - this is a useful read for anyone in the innovation area!