Innovation - it's got to be real
- Dec 08, 2008
Following on from Richard's post on Innovation - I learned a really valuable lesson about Innovation recently. When I was a junior brand manager at Virgin Drinks about 10 years ago, I came up with a great idea, which I dubbed 'Virgin water for the world'. I created a bottled water product in which we would donate a percentage of profits to a water charity every time it was sold, creating wells in Africa. I had everything worked out: the water source, the bottle and packaging, the business model, the water charity, and the projected donations.
However, with hindsight, I think I was too inexperienced to drive the idea through the business, leaving it to my seniors who didn't really believe in it, and they didn't give it the green light. The idea never saw the light of day and I gave up on it. In the end the senior directors moved on and so the whole idea was rather worthlessly lost. Then a few weeks ago I was watching telly when I saw an advert for a similar product, which has been launched this year. I spent a couple of days fuming that another company had 'stolen' my idea and then I realised - innovation isn't dreaming up the ideas, innovation is having the drive to make them a reality. You can't patent something that's just an idea and so until you get it to market, it's fair game.
I shouldn't have given up on the idea, I should have gone straight to Richard with it. I've used the experience to put a much harder definition of 'innovation' on my work these days. It's got to be real, it's got to be live, otherwise it simply doesn't exist.
