September 23, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Innovation — as a concept and a goal — is popular these days. The Obama administration, of course, has set up its Office of Social Innovation and several nonprofit groups are pioneering what they describe as innovative approaches to fighting social or environmental problems.
But what does it really mean to be innovative? At the Clinton Global Initiative a panel of experts sought to answer that question.
John Kao, founder of the Institute for Large Scale Innovation, said the idea is often misunderstood by some of the people who have embraced it recently.
“Innovation is an overly used word these days,” he said. He defined it as “creativity with a plan and purpose.”
Of course, what may seem like noteworthy creativity to some, may not appeal to others. If someone threw a bucket of paint on the floor it wouldn’t be worth anything, Mr. Kao said, but if Jackson Pollock did it, the value would change.
William Drayton, the founder of Ashoka, a charity that has championed the role of social entrepreneurs, said that innovation requires the creative ideas of individuals but also a society or an organization that fosters such thinking.
He said America needs to instill in its teenagers a sense that they can be “change makers.” If parents and teachers can’t do that, the nation will be less competitive in the world marketplace. “It’s a huge challenge for this country,” he said.
But Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, an engineering professor at Stanford University, cautioned against the idea that everyone needs to think of themselves as an innovator within a business or charity. “If everybody is change making, you’re not building scale,” she said.
