“So when you look carefully at the definitions, there is in fact no essential difference between creativity and innovation. Not for anyone who takes either of them seriously. Everyone basically agrees on the importance of ideas + action and novelty + value. From this angle, arguments about the superiority of innovation to creativity start to look like macho one-upmanship”

As far as superiority goes, I agree that there is no NEED to define the difference between creativity and innovation. But what if we view the issue from a different angle? What if we temporarily forget about the words “innovative” and “creative”, and focus instead on…

ideas?

action?

novelty?

value?

Is there a NEED to define the cognition/synthesis of an idea separate from the cognition/synthesis + action? Similarly, is there a need to define ideas that are novel versus ideas that are both novel and have value?

What if a member of our creative team produces content that has 3 of those 4 points? Do we tell them, “you’re creative/innovative minus that value bit at the end?” Do we use the words creative or innovative to describe this situation at all? Are there words other than creative or innovative that we can use to more accurately describe the situation?

For me, there IS a need to define the two things separately… because, well… I like use a single word to describe the situation… it saves me a lot of time

Now the question becomes, which words do we use? Unless there is an official “word definition committee” that we can submit a review request to… I don’t think it matters as the two are already being used interchangeably. I think the trick is to know what you NEED it to mean… make sure this definition is in alignment with your team… then use it accordingly.

For myself… I lean a bit more toward the definition provided at the beginning. Why? Well, it just seems to be how the majority of people are using it, and I spend less time having to align my definition with theirs.

I have rarely heard a painting described as innovative, but I have heard it described as creative. And I have more frequently heard that new all-in-one “blender/pancake-flipper/baby-diaper-changer” product defined as innovative.

I’ll reply to your question with Mark’s permission. Hi Mark, great post by the way. For me, Hugh and Levitts beautifully summed it up.

For the past 10 years I have been flirting with creativity (and innovation) whether in the artistic, scientific and legal field. I have been a scientific inventor and an innovator in the legal and artistic field. Now I also teach what I have learnt (as a creativity coach) and I also write about it.

I personally cannot come up with an innovation without first thinking creatively. I need to enter my creative state of mind and search for creative sparks, hints, analogies or metaphors. Very often most of the ideas are not worth pursuing. Sometimes some ideas might seem interesting at first sight, but are hard to apply or far from being appropriate or useful. Then, there are those ideas that seem to fit perfectly with what you are looking. You still have to work on them a bit to match perfectly what you are looking for. Now, if my idea is a completely new product, you’ll call it invention. If the idea improves on an existing idea or process, you’ll call it innovation.

Whether it’s an invention or an innovation, everything starts from my creative state of mind.

Don’t get caught up with definitions if you really want to create and innovate, you’ll end up spending all your time defending positions and feeling happy that you know the meaning, at least on paper.

We are all different and not all techniques apply to everybody. Techniques that work for me might not work for you. The only way to know is to put them into practice and see for yourself. Creating should be a fun process, though I don’t disagree it can be painful when you become too strict with yourself. But it’s great fun.

Haven’t answered your question as it would be as long as the whole chapter in my book – Discover Law Through Art : Combining Art, Science and Law to stimulate Creativity.

Valuable ideas and their implementation both are important and complementary to each other. Value can be achieved only be using both as complements to each other. We really cannot say that one is more important than the other.

I’ll start by saying your conclusion of innovation essentially being equal to creativity doesn’t really follow from the arguments you give. My reasoning is this: ideas + action is not the same as novelty + value. From what I can see, no one seems to be arguing that creativity involves physical action, but innovation does not. Similarly, no one seems to be arguing that innovation by definition involves only valuable ideas, while creativity is indifferent. Thus it seems to me that a point can be made for their distinction. The real question, then, is whether it is more important to have valuable ideas, or whether it is more important to act on them.

Another thought(s) perhaps? We all have our own definitions according to our particular prejudice (prejudice not to be confused with simply negativity, but to mean a ‘particular feeling about something’).

Creativity and Innovation to me have many meanings! In my reality, most of it is in not ‘reinventing the wheel’, but in giving the old wheel a new function and perhaps the resulting outcome will be Innovation.

I may have a ‘creative’ thought that I can put into form as:

1) a media applied to a medium (such as oils to a canvas or word to a written document), painting, literature, poetry, entertainment, etc.

or

2) an innovative idea about how to utilize an existing ‘product’ that is not what it was originally intended for, such as taking a product at the end of it’s marketing life and giving it new life through function OR perceived image. (A bit self-serving perhaps), but years ago (1968/9?) I sat in a client strategy session between a major advertising agency (as an employee of the agency) and a major manufacturer of a consumer laundry detergent. This was during/after the American Recession of the 70′s brought about by an ‘oil crisis’. The product was Cheer. The question/problem was a ‘new’ more appropriate slogan for a product at the end of its’ marketing maturity or into the decline cycle. I listened to dozens of ‘ideas’ being bantered about while studying the package. On the package was a slogan – All Temperature Cheer. Finally, after hours of creative ideas were passed and rejected and thousands of billable dollars were spent, I stepped out of my defined functional boundary, and suggested “All-Tempa-Cheer”. As far as I know, it is still the current slogan. Creativity or Innovation?

3) Another personal business circumstance in the 1980′s ended up being the birth of the concept of “sales force automation” – an ‘accidental’ utilization of new technology that was engineered/introduced for another function. What resulted in (#4 Below) to me is a clear example of creativity leading to innovation.

As a consultant, I was helping a client automate their sales and order process. In this period of ‘ancient’ history, when a Sales Representative would make a sale, they would fill in an Order Book (carbon paper – not NCR), mail the order back to the main office and then the order would be fulfilled. This sometimes could take weeks. The company wanted to speed this process up, if possible. New technology had been introduced that allowed ‘data’ to be transmitted via the acoustic coupler (not a consumer product), which used a telephone handset and transmitted at a speed of up to 300 baud. To transmit information the acoustic coupler converted data into sound signals, sent those signals over phone lines, and then the receiving acoustic coupler interpreted those signals. A typical 1-page order form could take as long as 5 minutes to transmit, but that was certainly more efficient than sending the form via US Postal Service. Faxing (fascimile) was not reasonable during this time period as a fax machine sold for as little as $4,500 and as much as $20,000 in l982.

According IBM Corporation, I am the ‘father’ of what is known widely today as Sales Force Automation – though I did not do anything more than take existing technology and merge it together to solve a problem other that what the technology was originally designed for.

This was accomplished by porting their Order Entry sofware to a laptop/portable computer (also a new technology for the time) that would output a plain text (ASCII) document. It worked and the client shortened the Order Fulfillment process by weeks! Again, Creativity or Innovation?

4) The first test sales representative was driving a 1982 Ford Econoline Van. His laptop was ‘stored’ on the passenger seat. He was forced to slam on his brakes on a freeway and the laptop went airborne and crashed into the dash board, which at that point in history was not a cushioned part of the vehicle. It fell about two and a half feet to the floor of the van and broke into pieces. When he brought it into the corporate office, the question asked me was “what do we do now”?

Having just been to the dentist the thought came to mind that perhaps the solution was some kind of ‘table’ or ‘desk’ that would mount to a vehicle floor to hold the laptop more securely. Within 9 months I had designed and Patented (a vast waste of money) a platform/device, with assistance of a mechanical engineer friend and introduced the first “The Mobile Desk”. A device that mounts in a vehicle to hold an electronic device(s). Again, Creativity or Innovation?

5) Lack of Business Creativity or Innovation? I took this finished product concept to independent investors and financial institutions seeking investors and/or SBA money. The results were a resounding “no” or “your are nuts – this product will never take off”. Above I mentioned that to me “No is not an option”. I had seen it work and I knew or projected that it would be a viable product, so I slowly, because of limited resources, moved forward on my own.

While I was not the market leader of this product when I ‘retired’ in September 2010, I had sold over 500,000 of the product in a variety of versions. The last industry numbers I saw were that over 5,000,000 of this concept, in various forms, had been marketed. Once again, Creativity or Innovation?

5) The introduction of the last named product “Epitome®” entailed further innovation of what a mobile desk could contain and in fact did provide 12V DC, 110V AC, USB, IEEE Firewire and Bluetooth technology to the product – all power provided from a single 12V source.

The biggest outgrowth result of the introduction of this product concept was the spawning of a retail industry that caters to the mobile office. At one point my company had over 40,000 SKU’s. I had many competitors that parroted my ideas. I was never concerned as competition spawns creativity and creative growth. Again, Creativity or Innovation?

Sadly, now that I have ‘retired’ I find that I do not really want to be ‘retired’ but lack the creativity or innovation to take my knowledge to developing Third World Countries to try to teach what little I know – but I am working on it and have relocated to Honduras to see if I can do so in a country that has grown to expect ‘entitlement’ much as the US has!

Invention : By spending time/money you get something new
Innovation : quantifiable gain from your idea/

Tesla spent money to create his inventions but was unable to monetize them. Innovators produce, market and profit from their innovations. Inventors may or may not profit from their work.