Leah Raby – Facilitator
University of Phoenix
OI 461
September 2008
Innovation, Design and Creativity
For the initial paper of the course the concepts of innovation, design and creativity will be compared and contrasted as noted in the course syllabus. Each term will be defined based on the definitions as suggested in our course required readings for week one and the business implications of each term shall be presented for consideration.
Brown, Hewitt and Morris (2002) define innovation as “the generic term for the successful exploitation of new ideas.” In the competitive global economic environment of today businesses that have any intention of maintaining or increasing current market share must successfully implement the concept of innovation as presented. Successful businesses may not be solely responsible for the creation of a new idea, yet in order to profit from the concept must play a primary role in implementing the idea into the consumer base for profit.
As a supplement to the week one text reading is an article entitled The Innovation Sandbox in which the author, Prehalad (2006), introduces the analogy of innovation as a sandbox where innovation is represented as a “fairly complex, free-form exploration and even playful experimentation within extremely fixed specified constraints.”
The author of our primary text presents a clear concept of how design relates to the processes of innovation and creativity. As defined by von Stamm (2003), “design is the conscious decision-making process by which information (an idea) is transformed into an outcome, by it tangible (product) or intangible (service).” From this definition one can see just how closely related the concept of innovation and design is to any industry.
Whether or not design contributes to the success of a product and a company’s performance is critically influenced by management’s attitude towards it (von Stamm, 2003). As presented in our week one readings the process of...