Innovation is a subject that interests me, in part, because of its critical role in entrepreneurship. Christensen may have defined the economics of innovation, but the process of innovation continues to be a subject of much continuing research and study. Today's HBS First Look led me to an interesting article about the research of HBS faculty member Karim R. Lakhani. Lakhani's area of interest is the open-source software community, but this work has lead him into research on "models for innovation".
Lakhani draws two important conclusions about the process of innovation:
- Introducing problems to those with expertise at the periphery of a problem produces the quickest and most effective solutions
- "Innovations happen at the intersection of disciplines."
The lessons to be derived from this research include:
- Experts, such as CEOs, do not necessarily produce innovative solutions
- Diversity in the workforce probably encourages "expertise at the periphery"
- To be an innovative thinker one must be multi-disciplined, studying and solving problems in unrelated fields, e.g. mathemeatics, music and education
A SF post from October 2007 about my friend Jeff Stamp made both of Lakhani's points. The credit probably goes to Jeff who also teaches and does research on innovation in entrepreneurship.
