Innovation is one of those magic words that gets sprinkled on speeches and websites to make everyone feel warm, fuzzy and optimistic about how things will turn out.
My favourite recent example of this is Mark Rylance’s tech-billionaire in “Don’t Look Up.”
Most innovations fail – and it can be bad luck, bad timing or other things that consumers are interested in (betamax versus vhs) that is the problem. There’s a great Machiavelli quote about innovation that doesn’t get enough use.
Also, there is an unjustified assumption that all innovations are progressive, will lead to a better world. Hmm – ask the peoples exterminated by European colonists if the innovation of the machine gun was a Good Thing…
See also marchudson.net for a necessarily incomplete list of innovation terminology