We’ve always known “why?”
Eureka!
We can carry on doing the same old things!
Along the way, we can improve, sell more, and cut costs.
But in end, sooner or later, we need to do something different.
That is why we innovate.
Now we know “how?”
Nowadays, everyone is talking about innovation!
Many things seem mysterious for a long time, and then we bring them under control.
It happened in “sales”, then in “quality”, now it is the turn of “innovation”.
In the past, a few people knew that they could manage innovation; now everyone knows.
There are processes for managing innovation using “ideation”, “co-creation” and, even, “open innovation”.
That is how we innovate.
But do we know “what?”
How do we know what to innovate?
Now there is a question!
By John Lewis
Learning from Dogs 
Are you asking us to innovate innovation?
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It’s a thought, Per! And, in a sense, I am!
However, it is not my intention to be as “meta” as that; I’ll endeavour to explain in another post.
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Or telling us not to innovate so much when innovating?
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Now, I can see that I have set you thinking!!
In a sense, in this question, you seem to be asking the opposite of your previous question.
Again, in a sense, I am.
I think that you are fishing for a clue! So … in general: I am asking how we select the areas in which to innovate and, somewhat equivalently, how we select, from the innovations that we have found, which of them to implement.
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Science is how to innovate. The rest is small details.
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With respect, I couldn’t disagree more. Innovation, or a person’s ability to think outside the box, as in connecting up ‘dots’ in an inspired manner, is nothing to do with science.
Yes, when it comes to scientific breakthroughs, the flash of inspiration needs to be supported and confirmed by good science. But good science without innovative thought is very inefficient. Prof James Lovelock being a supreme example of both inspired (innovative) thinking coupled with good science.
And, of course, innovation spreads across all the creative aspects of mankind not just the sciences.
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With due respect too, I was a bit too aphoristic. By “science”,I meant BIG TIME INNOVATIVE science, as it is created. It’s always out of the box. PhD theses are in theory given, NOT for parroting some known science, but for bringing some science in novo. Innovation, otherwise said.
“Science” etymologically speaking is any body of rather certain knowledge. What is commonly meant by “science” though is something defined by the self described scientific establishment. Some science extends obviously beyond physis (= natural world) towards so called “human sciences”, and philosophy, and beyond.
All our technology, economy, world, rest on science. No scientific progress, no serious innovation beyond fashion and how many angels dance on a pin.
Take the lasers: they are everywhere, including telecommunications. No laser, no (present day) telecommunications. Lasers originate, though, from theoretical work of Einstein (~ 1920), followed by a deliberate push from the Kastler-Brossel laboratory in Paris to make optical pumping a reality (early 1950s). Then Townes came and spent a sabbatical year at the Ecole Normale Superieure with Kastler and Brossel. In turn Townes, and many others started an effort towards the LASER.
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