What's the Difference Between Innovation and Creativity?

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By Dennis D. McDonald

I’ve been listening to Phil McKinney’s Killer Innovations podcasts. I am trying to understand how social media and social networking can contribute to innovative practices within an organization. One important impact might be the manner in which “innovation” is managed.

I have expressed in the past some skepticism about whether innovation can be “managed.” Some of my concerns are  discussed by Jeffrey Phillips in his post “You Can’t Manage Innovation.” One reason for some of my own confusion was my failing to distinguish appropriately between innovation and creativity.

Innovation can be thought of as a process. It is the impact of social media on this process that I am exploring. A practical example is how to manage the introduction of certain types of blogging into an organization as a tool for internal communications. The blog and its features provide a wide range of structured and unstructured approaches to communication, information management, and relationship development. Assessing and planning for how this complex mix can support the innovation process is an interesting management challenge. For example, you need to strike the right balance between concepts of structure and process on the one hand, and freedom and spontaneity on the other.

Creativity is less of a process than a  personal characteristic. People differ greatly in their ability to think creatively. One type of creativity is the spontaneous generation of new ideas of which some people are capable; extreme examples of this type of creativity are people like Mozart and Edison. Another kind of creativity is the ability to discern connections and relationships between existing facts or phenomena. Some people are creative on their own; others thrive on interaction with others.

Social media and social networking, when applied within an organization, can help to promote both innovation and creativity. I’ll be exploring these topics and their management implications in the coming weeks and welcome comments and suggestions from others who are wrestling with the same ideas.

Copyright (c) 2007 by Dennis D. McDonald

Comments

[Daniel Sweet]

Based on what I've seen, the trick with social media encouraging creativity is trust.

Most employees want to get credit for their ideas and, as a result, hold them close to their vests.

A collaborative process like this would be a good thing if the company can get everyone to trust each other (not to steal the idea, not to punish - particularly socially - bad ideas, etc).

Unfortunately, humans being humans, only the really self-motivated people are going to participate in this type of collaboration since there is, effectively, no credit for ideas for any single person and it's just another "thing to do".

As always, this sort of thing needs to be led by example to get people comfortable with it. When you see some of the boss' bad ideas in public, you might not be shy about sharing yours.

Dan

[Lee White]

I am working on the same thing, how to leverage social media in a large organizational setting. I agree that trust is key. That is why the development of social media within an organization must be done organcally. Find pockets where trust inherently exists and show those groups how much better they can be with social media tools and mindset. Then let the successes be the storys that spread the word.

Looking forward to future posts on the subject.

[Dennis McDonald]

Dan-

Thanks for the comments.

I was thinking about your statement "Most employees want to get credit for their ideas and, as a result, hold them close to their vests. " -- I guess I need to study up more on group dynamics. Seems to me that keeping ideas to yourself could also guarantee you NEVER "get credit" since no one knows you originated an idea. But also, just originating an idea isn't enough, you also need to nurture it, and part of that nurturing involves collaboration and discussion to work out the kinks.

- Dennis.

[Dennis McDonald]

Lee-

I agree totally. Even if you make tools available universally, nothing beats "word of mouth" to promote acceptance.

What kind of metrics are you tracking?

- Dennis

[Allan]

In my view Creativity and innovation are inextricably linked for the simple reason that even if a creative idea is just a collection of known functions put together in a different way (innovation) to produce something new it is still creative. Both creativity and innovation are too closely linked to be exclusive from one another. Creative and innovative people must also realise that their dreams to be successful have to take the risk of sharing with others their ideas, dreams and plans even if they may change in some respects from the original concept. Not easy for those people to do, but it is vital for their success to build a solid trustworthy group of people around them
that they can rely on as allies and not least for support.

[Pedro Thormodsen]

Nice to see others wrestling with this concept. Whilst I can easely see the wast opportunities that web2.0-tools offer vs traditional corporate tools (for example e-mails and workshop brainstorming), I'm not finding any comfortable and effective way of introducing this into any of my clients businesses. Just now I'm realising that to be able to reap the benefits we might need to explore a totally new way of corporate LEADERSHIP. I highly recomend reading Gary Hamels latest book - The Future of Management. Although he doesn't mention web2.0 specifically, the ideas in the book are wery well aligned with the chaotic and fuzzy world of web2.0. I'm rereading it now to see if I can manage to be more specific, but my first conclusion must be that we cannot think of using web2.0 in a corporate context without making significant changes to the traditional style of leadership.

[Kate Vrijmoet]

Thank you so much for your insights. I must, however, take a contrary point of view regarding creativity. Creativity is very much a process with an end goal to generate ideas. The process is research, brainstorming, incubation and aha! moment. Creativity studies is a broad field of research with many subbranches and practical applications. And although many cite the primary difference between creativity and innovation as internal vs. external or intrinsic vs. extrinsic, there are many effective circumstances where creativity and creative problem solving is not just an external process, but an effective one. There's a fabulous journal called The Journal of Creative Behavior I recommend. Thanks and best to you! -Kate