Important Reminder: Your Innovations Are Not Immortal

from the changing-with-the-times dept

Brian sends in a short blog post from Scott Anthony, highlighting a key point we've tried to make around here for years, Your Innovations Aren't Immortal:

Take a deep breath, and repeat after me: "My [business model, product, business unit, brand, offering] has a finite life. I'm going to make that life as happy and productive as possible, but I also have to think about what's next."

This is a major issue, and could be the underlying theme of a good percentage of posts around here. Companies or individuals who think that they have some inalienable "right" to have their innovation remain at the top of the market, even as others out-innovate them. It comes from a massive sense of entitlement, that if you innovated once, no one else should be allowed to out-innovate you, and the government should somehow protect your position as an innovative leader. We've jokingly referred to this as companies charging others with "felony interference with a business model."

Innovation is an ongoing process, and that's true for everyone. It's not a once-and-done thing, and whatever innovation you did yesterday is obsolete. You need to keep innovating. Paraphrasing what someone else in the link above says, you need to innovate at the pace of the market. The problem is that many try to use politicians and the court system to slow down the market, rather than innovating along with it.

Conceptually, this is difficult for many. They feel a sense of accomplishment for what they've done, and would like to have the time to bask in that accomplishment. But history has shown that there's no time to bask -- only time to keep innovating. And while that may not seem to be as much fun, it does give you an ongoing sense of accomplishment and makes the world better for everyone at the same time. Who would complain about that, other than those who can't keep up?

Filed Under: business models, innovation, ongoing, process