The Innovator's Toolkit: 50+ Techniques for Predictable and Sustainable Organic Growth, 2nd Edition

The Innovation Formula

That which once was mysterious tends to become less so over time, as we learn. The incidence of innovation is surely no exception to this rule; it’s been studied and scrutinized for as long as humans have engaged in rational thought and action.

What could be more interesting and exciting than figuring out how, exactly, people and organizations solve problems that stand in the way of human progress? And, just in case we need to make the connection, all businesses in the world exist for the same purpose: to better meet human needs.

Only at a higher level do corporations exist to make profits, because if they can’t meet a set of human needs better and more affordably than competitors, there won’t be any profits. As for public organizations, clearly they have an obligation to provide what people need in the most value-packed way they can. Profits aside, governments have a responsibility to innovate as much or even more than private and public companies.

The central theme of The Innovator’s Toolkit is that the process of creating something new under the sun is more known than unknown. It isn’t mysterious, elusive or out of reach for most. It can just feel this way because most people and companies are challenged to understand how innovation really happens.  

But there is a formula—not a rote, turnkey formula but a structure and process for innovation. And, as The Innovator's Toolkit indicates, there is a set of techniques that can be used to make innovation more systematic and predictable at every step of the way. 

Delving into these techniques can be very interesting for those who are curious about how scientific and technological advances become applied to 1) disrupting mature markets with new, low-cost products and services, and 2) commercializing new solutions that command price premiums. As well, using the techniques in this book can result in making less radical breakthroughs—incremental innovations that may not knock the customer’s socks off but provide those extra features needed to keep up with or edge out competitors.

Most will use The Innovator’s Toolkit as a reference guide as they go about innovation. Others will give the book an in-depth ponder, even reading further about the many tools that are whole fields and disciplines unto themselves.