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IT'S ALL ABOUT INNNOVATION 

A few months ago I had a conversation with a client regarding innovation and the speed at which things continue to change in the marketplace. That conversation got me thinking about how businesses and people tend to imagine that ideas have to be utterly new and revolutionary in order to qualify as truly “innovative.”

But if you stop and think of some of the blockbuster successes of recent years, that’s not really how it works. One team basically took Facebook status updates and shrunk them down to “byte” size (140 characters), creating Twitter. Or think of Instagram as just a mobile Flickr for people on the go. The “big” idea that there was a vast market for Web-based photo sharing was already out there.

I could list more, but you see the point. The fact is many of the most successful ventures started off with someone simply tweaking an idea that already existed and making it their own. Through research, watching trends, studying the competition, being open to change and taking risks, they change the market and find success. The best way to define this kind of innovation is as “evolutionary,” not revolutionary, even though the results can be massive.

My friend Josh Linkner, who writes a great blog on entrepreneurship and innovation, constantly uses the terms “disruptive innovation” and “disruptive change.” After a little research, I discovered the term “disruptive innovation” was coined by Clayton M. Christensen, professor at Harvard Business School. In his book The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen defines disruptive innovation as products/services that “bring to a market a very different value proposition than had been available previously. Generally, disruptive technologies underperform established products in mainstream markets. But they have other features that a few usually new customers value.” In other words, disruptive innovations will open up a new segment in the market, which early adopters jump into first, to be followed by the general consumer audience.

On the other hand, incremental innovations are, according to the dictionary, “a series of small improvements to an existing product or product line that usually helps maintain or improve its competitive position over time.” As opposed to disruptive innovations, incremental ones are more evolutionary in nature, as they strengthen your position in the market by simply refining your already existing offering, or allow you to offer a product with a slight twist on something that was already successful and make it your own.

This is something all of us need to be aware of and exactly what many of the businesses in this year’s edition of Louisiana Innovation and Technology Profiles are doing. I invite you to take a close look at these progressive companies that continue to evolve to keep up with the markets they serve and expand into new ones. Their leaders understand that innovation, technology and entrepreneurial spirit are keys to remaining competitive—and that they don’t need to invent a whole new market to do it.

The best is yet to come!

JULIO MELARA
President
Baton Rouge Business Report

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