Overview

There are an extremely large number of books on innovation.  The number is so large that it tends to imply that there is something wrong in the innovation book writing process, and that happens to be true.  What is wrong is discussed in this blog.

Innovation for Business, but not for You

The majority of books on innovation deal with how to make a busi-ness innovative, not with how you can become innovative.  More than 90% of the innovation books available are on this subject.  They do not teach you how to be innovative.  This probably happens because it is possible to make a good deal more money teaching businesses to be innovative than teaching individuals to be innovative.  It is unfortunate because the best businesses need outstanding innovators to make them the best.  And they are not always able to get as many as they need from the USA.

Creativity is Covered, but Completivity is Uncovered

As you explore the mass of books on innovation you first have to sort out the ones that are designed to deal with personal rather than business innovation.  But that is only the beginning of the sorting process because there are other serious problems as well.  As has been noted already, these books generally discuss creativity at some length, which is good.  But unfor-tunately they generally have very incomplete discussions of completivity, which is very bad.  They do not thoroughly discuss how you get the job done.  They do not do their job.

Innovation Books often Contain Innovation Myths

Innovation is a very popular subject of discussion and such subjects are often surrounded and impregnated with myths.  This is certainly true for innovation.  There is great variation in the quality of innovation books in regard to myths.  But it may be difficult for you personally to detect these myths.  Later on we will provide some help in this area, by introducing you to one or more books that specifically discuss the Myths of Innovation.

Overview

We need to explore the relationship between Imagineering and Innovation in detail, and a good place to start is with the dictionary definitions.  We will start with Innovation, which has two definitions.

INNOVATION

A new idea, device, or method
The act or process of introducing new ideas, devices, or methods

IMAGINEERING

The implementation of creative ideas into practical form

Discussion

These two definitions obviously overlap appreciably, but they are also significantly different.  The difference can be characterized by the nature of the two key words in the above definitions: introducing versus implementation.

         We need to remember that the vast majority of ideas are not successful.  For an idea to be successful it needs to be implemented as well as be introduced.  New ideas can be successful, and a few of them are, but most of them are not.  If we add the term successful to innovation it becomes essentially equivalent to imagineering.  But in the very large number of discussions of innovation and books on innovation the implementation issues are very often not given sufficient attention.  Have you ever seen the word completivity before, or anything equivalent to it?  Did you know that far less than one percent of patented ideas ever achieve actual success in the field?

Literally every discussion or book on innovation covers the subject of creativity in detail.  But creativity is nowhere near enough to reach success in the field.  Completivity involves a lot of very ingenious thinking and hard work, sometimes harder than what is needed for the creativity side.  This will become clear as the discussion continues.

Imagineering is a better term to describe what is needed for new ideas to reach success in the difficulty of the real world than Innovation.

Overview

There are four ingredients that are the most important for achieving Imagineering success.  They are Creativity, Completivity, one or another aspect of STEM, and Teams.  These ingredients are discussed in the following notes.

Elements of Creativity

Everyone agrees that creativity is important.  They also tend to agree that creativity includes many different elements.  Creativity as I see it is covered pretty well by the following elements.

Strong desire to successfully create
Indifference to rules and conventions
High level of observing and sensing

High level of curiosity and questioning
Desire to experience and experiment
Persistence: ability to fail and try again

Tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity
Networking – the tangled web in action
System thinking and whole brain thinking

Playfulness – or craziness, if you will
Powerful, highly-developed intuition
Ability to associate and synthesize

Instinct to simplicate and add lightness
Instinct to find and include synergies

The large number of ingredients of creativity might seem to make it difficult, but actually they make creativity easier.  You don’t have to be perfect in all the elements.  We will discuss this in more detail when we talk about how to become an Imagineer.

The Nature of Completivity

Everyone has heard about creativity again and again.  But it is quite possible that you have never heard about completivity.  What is going on?  Creativity gives rise to good ideas.  Many of these ideas are patented.  But what percentage of patents results in important successful innovations?  Less than one percent.  So there are many, many good ideas, but much, much fewer successful innovations.  The difference is completivity, the process of carrying good ideas out in the world to success.  That is the job of the Imagineer.

Elements of Completivity

To be good at completivity the Imagineer, in my mind, needs to be conscientious, collaborative, and combative.  So besides creativity, that results in a combination of the following elements.  The values of these elements can be tested by looking at the top leaders of the most successful high tech companies around today.  Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and the folks at Google all closely match, or did match, these characteristics.

Conscientiousness

Instinctively thorough, careful, and vigilant
Hard-working, reliable, and loyal to the job
Strong desire to do the task in hand well
Motivated to test, check, and recheck
Takes personal responsibility for success

Collaborativeness

Good team player in a multidiscipline group
Highly empathetic to needs of customers
Works well in the tangled web of innovation
Instinctively seeks skunk works environment
Collaborates with competition when necessary

Combativeness

Willing to fight hard for what is right
Willing to fight for the innovation team
Willing to fight when out-numbered

Willing to fight tough competition
Willing to fight inappropriate rules
Willing to fight to fire the boss, if and
when the boss needs to be fired

As was true for creativity, completivity includes a fairly large number of elements.  In the same sense as for creativity this makes completivity easier rather than harder.  Many of the above elements will get further discussion as we go along, so don’t worry if a few seem mysterious now.

The Importance of STEM

To carry an idea through to a successful result you need to build the something needed, and that implies that you have the required degree of STEM capabilities.  But as mentioned before you don’t have to have all the capabilities that might be needed, the work can be divided between you and your teammates.  And that of course is where teamwork comes in.

The Importance of Being Part of a Team

Considering the number of elements that enter into success, it is not hard to see why, in modern times at least, teams play a very important role in the success of innovation.  This has probably been true for the last 1000 years.  Teams do not have to be very large.  Teams of two are very much more successful than one person alone.  One person alone, is usually either unsuccessful or extremely slow, but may often overcome that by joining up with an appropriate team at some point.

America Badly Needs More Imagineers

America has always been one of the most innovative countries in the world, and that has been one of our greatest assets.  But now as companies can reach overseas more and more they can reach for innovations overseas.  And as this happens the innovativeness of the USA, and hence a key value of the USA, gradually declines.  America needs more imagineers to create more successful innovations right here in the USA.  Otherwise, we are a country that is going downhill.  It would be a very bad mistake to give away our highly valuable imagineering capabilities.

Top Technical Companies Need More Imagineers

From a personal point of view you should realize that the top technical companies of the USA, such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc., want and need imagineers.  They have them, and are determined to get more of them.  That makes a very big contribution to their value, and also makes them more interesting places to work.

They can get Imagineers in the USA, but also elsewhere

These companies will first try to get their imagineers in the USA, but if they do not find enough of the imagineers they want in this country they do not hesitate to look for them elsewhere.  They will bring them in from overseas.  They have even had the government establish a law, called H-1B, that allows them to provide special visas to overseas applicants with a high degree of technical knowledge, and an interest in imagineering.

There are now more imagineers who come from outside this country than there should be in the top technical companies of America.  This situation needs to change.  You can help to change it by joining one of those companies, but to do that you have to be a competent Imagineer.

STEM with Imagineering is More Fun and More Valuable

Not only does being an Imagineer increase the probability of joining a high level company, it has a number of other values as well.  It definitely will make your work life more interesting and more fun, filled with challenges, changes, and excitement.  It also can substantially increase the value of your work and the size of your paycheck.

Imagineering is an art, so that STEM with Imagineering becomes STEAM, and becomes something that you can get all steamed up about.