After watching a video of VentureBeat’s recession conference posted, and then lost, by Robert Scoble, I posted this comment on friendfeed …

“”trying to encourage innovation” from scoble’s video .. man, you don’t have to, and actually cannot, encourage innovation .. innovation is the nature of life, it happens by itself … being receptive? ok, that can be encouraged”

This is the comment thread that ensued …

  • Even if we agree that innovation is like life, Doesn’t life need support/encouragement? — doesn’t        existwithout food, water, air. But innovation needs nothing? - Brian Sullivan
  • But you can do all kinds of things that kill innovation. Shared Vision - Group Think - Only hiring those that agree with you, etc. - Brian Roy
  • life seems to happen by itself .. innovation (in the sense of inspiration) is not something you do, it is something you receive, by simply listening inside .. it does not depend on thinking, that comes later … innovation is the nature of consciousness itself, and that at our core is what we are - You
  • i disagree. innovation isn’t something that happens on its own. it’s not spontaneous. it needs creativity, nourishment & action. whether others are receptive to it is a different story, which may or may not take hold despite one’s creativity, nurture or action. - Cee Bee
  • Innovation *is* something you do — inspiration and ideas are not innovation. Innovation requires action. - Brian Sullivan
  • substitute inspiration for innovation then .. agree that after the insight, nurture is necessary - You
  • @Gregory - so innovation is like fingernails - Innovation is HARD WORK. It isn’t organic… read this (yes it is from my blog… but still): http://briantroy.com/blog/2008… - Brian Roy
  • but innovation as change does happen by itself, it cannot be stopped, nature is doing it 24/7 .. to monetize it, as i suppose the business mind looks at it, does take effort .. - You
  • the mind can, by simple inward-directed listening, can apprehend any innovative thought that one wishes for (because they are all already in seed form in consciousness) … this is what i wish to say .. you don’t have to do anything for this to happen, in fact “doing” gets in the way - You
  • “necessity is the mother of invention” I think it is also a main driver of innovation as well. It happens naturally. It’s evolution. Sometimes that is the necessity of a group, sometimes of one person. A process can help to identify and speed innovation, but I don’t know if you can actually make it. - AJ Kohn

I learned two things from this … the need for precision in using terms that mean different things to different people, and that there may be people in innovation industries who do not know how the mind works in the process of discovery.

What is innovation?