Interesting take on this Femi. It’s really helpful to align people around a common definition, and reduce the mis-use if the word “innovation”. One of the more radical definitions I’ve heard, from when I visited Corning’s HQ in upstate New York is “innovation = invention + commercialization”.

By that definition, taking an existing solution that’s already commercialized (eg tires for cars) and moving it into a new domain (eg tires for airplanes) is not innovation. However, taking a really old invention (eg Gorilla Glass) and commercializing it decades later (eg using Gorilla Glass on the iPhone) would be considered innovation. Moving Gorilla glass to TVs after they’ve already been on phones wouldn’t be considered innovation either.

While I love the purity of that definition, in ensures minimal room to fake innovation, I also struggle with how restrictive it is. What do you think?