I was listening to “Grow your innovation expertise from incremental to emergent to game-changing innovations”, a podcast from Phil McKinney. Phil is the author of the book Beyond The Obvious.
In this podcast Phil talks about four types of Innovation – Incremental, Emergent, Game Changing and Life Changing.
Incremental Innovations
- Allows you to get some early successes
- It is the core of innovation strategy in many organizations
- Think of it as Innovation Training Wheels
Emergent Innovations
- Allows you to move past incremental innovation
- Increases innovation awareness inside the organization
- Helps you build Innovation Muscles
Killer Innovations
- They are game changers
- Change your (company’s) place in the marketplace
- Multiple incremental innovations and emergent innovations may lead you to come up with Killer Innovations
He also talks about Life Changing Innovations (Internet being an example) that creates new industries and changes the lives of people.
While listening to this podcast, it occurred to me that encouraging incremental innovations may be a starting point to bootstrap innovation in organizations. I will get more specific with some case studies in a future podcast.