Real Artists Ship—So Do Real Innovators

Dr. Sharon M. McIntyre New Cottage Industries & Co.

IT WAS LATE JANUARY 1983. A 27-year-old Steve Jobs was leading the Macintosh group at Apple, a company he had co-founded seven years earlier. The Apple Lisa computer had been launched by another team a few days earlier; the Lisa division had more budget, more people, and more marketing horsepower than the Macintosh group. As journalist Frank Rose (1989) explained, the upcoming launch of the first Macintosh computer (rumoured to be more affordable and user-friendly than the Lisa) had already been delayed from May to August 1983 and costs were increasing, “[T]hey were behind. Engineering wasn’t finished. The disk drive was extremely iffy. None of the outside software developers had delivered anything. Marketing was out in the woods. The factory didn’t even exist.”

Jobs decided to take the 100-person Macintosh group to an off-site retreat; they loaded onto busses and headed to a beachside hotel in laid-back Carmel, California. Journalist Rose (p. 56) shared the purpose for the off-site: “The point was to build a little team spirit, to get everybody psyched up for the final push—and to have a good time.” It was here that Jobs shared a valuable lesson with his (talented and sometimes undisciplined) team, distinguishing for them the difference between creativity and innovation. On “an easel at one end of a long, narrow conference room,” (p. 56) Jobs unveiled the following provocative statement:

Jobs explained to the Macintosh computer group of employees, “You are all artists. You know that. But real artists don’t hang on to their creations. Real artists ship. Matisse shipped. Picasso shipped. You are going to ship too.” (adapted from Rose, p. 56). —Steve Jobs, 1983 (In an offsite talk to employees.)

Ultimately, the first Macintosh didn’t ship for a whole year after that talk, in January 1984, fueled by an iconic Superbowl commercial. But the message from Jobs was understood—it was important to be creative, but you weren’t an innovator until your ideas left the lab or studio and were shipped out into the community for adoption or rejection.

Likewise, for author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, celebrated Hungarian-American psychologist, professor, and originator of the term “creative flow,” creative ideas are not fully realized unless they interact with the society around them:

[C]reative ideas vanish unless there is a receptive audience to record and implement them. […] There is no way to know whether a thought is new except with reference to some standards, and there is no way to tell whether it is valuable until it passes social evaluation. Therefore, creativity does not happen inside people’s heads, but in the interaction between a person’s thoughts and a sociocultural context. It is a systemic rather than an individual phenomenon. […] Today many American corporations spend a great deal of money and time trying to increase the originality of their employees, hoping thereby to get a competitive edge in the marketplace. But such programs make no difference unless management also learns to recognize the valuable ideas among the many novel ones, and then finds ways of implementing them (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996).

As organizations and communities set their ambitions on delivering innovation to be able to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing world, building a shared innovation lexicon becomes an important aspect of aligning their people and resources. Too often, colleagues’ misalignment in related meaning and expectations results in innovation failures. For example: regular idea brainstorming (or ideation) sessions are thought by some to be innovation; the filing of patents is considered by others to be synonymous with innovation and the number of filings is celebrated by both the private and public sector; and testing the marketplace with prototype solutions is disparaged by some executives as unprofessional and potentially hurtful to a company’s reputation. Although ideation, patents, and prototypes can certainly be useful parts of an innovation process—none of these elements on their own deliver innovation for an organization or community.

The diagram (Figure 1) presents a useful model to begin developing a shared innovation lexicon and understanding in an organization or community. (As an aside, in the years since I researched and developed this simple model, it is definitely the slide most photographed by audiences during my conference presentations—so if your group’s innovation vocabulary is a bit confused, you’re not alone!)

As you see in the diagram, creativity is where the innovation process starts; novel ideas are generated and assessed. Next, when one of those novel ideas is selected, some time and money is invested, and something new is created, we enter the invention phase (this can result in a product or service prototype, a patent, a minimum viable product, a product mock-up, a pilot project, and so forth.) However, innovation is not delivered until the invention is taken to the next level; more time and money is invested to bring a new and desired offering (at an appropriate scale) into the marketplace or community (i.e. it is “shipped”!), and reciprocal value is generated for both the creator and recipients of the innovation. This value can take a great many forms including: money, happiness, health, time saved, status, knowledge, safety, a sense of belonging, comfort, power, etc.

When an organization or community embraces this shared innovation vocabulary and model, each person can realize they share a collective responsibility to contribute towards delivering innovation: (i.e. something new, that is desired, and which creates reciprocal value). People realize that, for example, sitting in frequent ideation sessions and storing ideas in a database is not delivering innovation. Holding or attending idea pitching workshops is not delivering innovation. Endlessly tinkering with product ideas that are never commercialized is not delivering innovation. Sitting on judging panels for early startup pitch nights is not delivering innovation. Sharing the number of patents your technology centre filed this year is not delivering innovation. Visiting Silicon Valley and networking is not delivering innovation. Attending startup weekend off-sites is not delivering innovation. Building innovation hubs, centres, labs, studios, incubators, clusters, etc. is not delivering innovation. Choosing some high-potential employees and calling them the Growth & Innovation Group is not delivering innovation. Holding innovation community events and measuring attendance as a sign of success is not delivering innovation. All of these activities keep people busy and have the potential to contribute toward innovation—but they don’t deliver innovation.

Real innovators ship.

FIGURE 1. DISTINGUISHING CREATIVITY, INVENTION, AND INNOVATION DIAGRAM. DIAGRAM BY DR. SHARON MCINTYRE.

The study and practice of creativity, invention, and innovation can be a highly rewarding and lifelong pursuit. The following series of provocative questions and accompanying resources are designed to share lessons learned and potentially pique your interest in pursuing further exploration.

1. Why is group brainstorming the worst method to generate highly novel, creative ideas? (Lehrer, 2012) 2. Can you objectively measure creativity? (Besemer & O’Quin, 1999) 3. At their core, all contemporary scholarly theories of creativity rely on the definition of creativity as a combination of novelty and what? (Amabile, 2011) 4. Why did the country of Ireland stop counting patents as an indicator of national innovation? (Jacobson, 2013) 5. What is so-called innovation theatre, and do I need to take a bow or get off the stage? (CB Insights Research, 2018) 6. If government is creating an innovation cluster in my region, is that a good idea? (Wadhwa, 2011) 7. When the training of community members is required in order to scale an innovation, is it more effective for experts or peers to lead the training? (Pascale, Sternin & Sternin, 2010) 8. What are innovation bright spots and how can they contribute to improving my organization’s innovation culture? (Heath & Heath, 2010) 9. How do managers and entrepreneurs approach innovation differently, according to historically influential economist and sociologist Schumpeter? (Hébert & Link, 2006) 10. Why is self-awareness an essential first step in entrepreneurial innovation? (Sarasvathy, 2001)

Dr. Sharon M. McIntyre

linkedin.com/in/sharonmcintyre

Dr. Sharon M. McIntyre (M.Ed., DSocSci) is working at the intersection of innovation, values, and collaborative creative culture. She leads New Cottage Industries & Co., an education company focused on growing practical creativity and inclusive innovation with clients and students. Sharon has deep experience in designing and delivering education programs for universities, polytechnics, and industry workshops. She has shared her passion for building pragmatic marketing, branding, and innovation systems with global corporations, public sector organizations, start-up enterprises, and schools for 25+ years. And Sharon has held senior leadership positions and consulted in a variety of industries including software, energy, telecommunications, housing, publishing, and the arts. Dr. McIntyre's research has articulated a new model of entrepreneurial innovation in Canada and illuminated the need for program and policy changes.

Featuring foreword by Chris Whitaker, President & CEO of Humber College; special contribution by Sarah Watts-Rynard, CEO of Polytechnics Canada; and interview with Gina Antonacci, Senior Vice-President, Academic, Humber College. This issue comprises 14 submissions, including Innovation Spotlights, Original Research Papers and Review Papers. Read the new issue (jipe.ca) to learn more about the ideas and insights that shaped the global polytechnic community’s response to COVID-19.