Innovation

Innovation, Creativity and Design

Jose Gonzalez

University of Phoenix

OI/361 – Innovation, Design, and Creativity for a Competitive Advantage

Prof: Luis Rios-Silva

05/25/2013

Innovation, creativity, and design are three concepts that appear to intertwine with each other, but can truly be set apart. It is true that one cannot exist without the other, but the way each of them behaves is quite different. Much like triplets, these concepts spawn from the same root, but each had its own personality. Therefore, in order to understand each one of them, we must sit with them individually and get to know them.

Taking a look at innovation we find that according to Van Stamm (2008) innovation is defined as a state of mind. On the other hand it has also been defined “the process of translating and idea or invention into a good or service that created value or for which customers will pay.” (BusinessDictionary.com, 2013) There is truth in both points of view, however, another way to look at innovation as the idea which not only provides value or solves a problem, it is the idea that solves the problem most efficiently and does it in a way that was not conceived before.

Creativity has been defined as “an essential building block for innovation.” (Van Stamm, 2008) Creativity is the birthplace of ideas. A creative person may find different ways to perform common everyday tasks. Another way to describe creativity is through music. There are billions of songs available in the iTunes Store, but with the exception of a few remakes, not one song is the same as the other. So it does require creativity to write a song, poem or even an essay for a class.

Design is a widely known and utilized term. However, because of that same fact, different meanings have been awarded to the word over time. Even Van Stamm had a hard time finding the correct meaning and at the ended decided to construct her own meaning influenced by meanings found in several different dictionaries....