Chapter 7: Creativity, Innovation, and Invention
Creativity, Innovation, and Invention: How They Differ
One of the key requirements for entrepreneurial success is the ability to develop and offer something unique to the marketplace. Over time, entrepreneurship has become associated with creativity, the ability to develop something original, particularly an idea or a representation of an idea. Innovation requires creativity, but innovation is more specifically the application of creativity. Innovation is the manifestation of creativity into a usable product or service. In the entrepreneurial context, innovation is any new idea, process, or product, or a change to an existing product or process that adds value to that existing product or service (OpenStax, 2020).
How is an invention different from an innovation? All inventions contain innovations, but not every innovation rises to the level of a unique invention. For our purposes, an invention is a truly novel product, service, or process. It will be based on previous ideas and products, but it is such a leap that it is not considered an addition to or a variant of an existing product but something unique. The box below highlights the differences between these three concepts.
Innovation or Invention? What Do You Think?
Invention
The first ever cell phone was created by a team led by Martin Cooper, an American engineer (Gregerson, n.d.). See Figure 7.1 (a). He is regarded as the father of the cell phone, launching the first phone in 1984 called the DynaTAC (The Invention of Mobile Phones, 2018).
This idea was novel because phones were not mobile before. It is an example of an invention.
Innovation
Now let’s compare this phone to the iPhone. The first iPhone was released in 2007, twenty-three years after the first mobile phone was available for purchase. See Figure 7.1 (b). The iPhone was the first of its kind to have a touch-sensitive multisensory interface. This made the product truly innovative. Apple took existing cell phone technology and made it better, therefore, classifying this product as an innovation.
Incremental Innovation and Creativity
As Apple continues to release new versions of the iPhone, some argue that these new phones are due to incremental innovation because the new versions are relatively similar to past versions, adding enhanced features. See Figure 7.1 (c). Apple must use their creativity to continue improving the iPhone and to keep up with changing customer expectations.
One way we can consider these three concepts is to relate them to design thinking. Design thinking is a method that focuses on designing and developing products based on customer needs. It involves an empathy-driven process to define complex problems and create solutions. This process is complex. Straightforward problems that can be solved with enough money and force do not require much design thinking. Creative design thinking and planning are about finding new solutions for problems with several tricky var