It is still often that innovation is mixed up with invention. Innovation, unlike invention, doesn’t have to be something that didn’t exist before. Many early entrepreneurs make the mistake of putting too much effort in ‘coming up with something novel’, instead of seeing what is out there and how it can be applied with new methods, in new regions or for new purposes. Indeed, sharing, combining and replicating the ideas that work are as valuable as creating something new.
The connected knowledge, or networked knowledge as some call it, has a power to contribute to world and here are some interesting quotes about it:
“Ideas cause ideas and help evolve new ideas. They interact with each other and with other mental forces in the same brain, in neighboring brains, and thanks to global communication, in far distant, foreign brains.” ~ Roger Sperry
“The great driver of scientific and technological innovation [in the last 600 years has been] the increase in our ability to reach out and exchange ideas with other people, and to borrow other people’s hunches and combine them with our hunches and turn them into something new.” ~ Steven Johnson