Organic Innovation Vs Innovation For The Sake Of Innovation

Innovation and the products that come from it is one of the world most natural phenomenons. Usually there is a problem and designers address that problem through the creation of a new product. However, with anxious shareholders and sales peoples, we are seeing more and more companies making the mistake of innovation for the sake of innovation rather and organic growth.

The most notable company in recent news has been Apple and their removal of core ports that many find essential. Although they have offered ways for backwards compatibility, they are bulky awkward and many are finding themselves unhappy with their purchases of new Apple devices. Both the new Iphone and macbook suffer from the loss of essential ports such as USB and headphone ports.

Apple tried to make excuses saying that they push the standard in new directions, which would be okay if they offered a solution that was faster and closer to being accepted as the standard, but they haven’t. They want to urge people to create better wireless Bluetooth headphones, but the standard of Bluetooth headphones right now might have far more to do with the lack of existing technology.

I might end up being completely wrong and Apple might push the industry to create better and more affordable technology for all, but I just don’t see it happening. Companies are going to try their hands at such a product, but I don’t see the market being as large or profitable than the current medium quality wired headphone market. I have tried many wireless headphones and think this technology is far from being perfected.

People expect innovation every year, but sometimes the motto “if it aint broke, don’t fix it” applies much more. I agree that we need to research and move towards better technology and more efficient ways to do things, but if the payoffs are only marginal it isn’t worth it. If we look at the VHS vs Beta debate, where Beta was the better technology, but lost out due to a big factor, which was the porn industry accepted it as the standard, we see people are willing to use what might not be the best, but what is the cheapest. Even today people are still buying and watching DVDs because they are “good enough”.

There is an amount of time needed before we shift into new areas and find more inefficiencies in the market. Only then should we address them, when the public at large wants to move forward. Many marketers say the public doesn’t know what they want until companies tell them what they want, which I agree with, but at the same time wanting and needing are completely different. We shouldn’t support companies that push innovation for the sake of innovation and sacrifice the user experience in the first place while doing it.

Instead of creating a product that the consumers don’t want or need, create a product that comes organically from the necessities that people have. Organic innovation is the hardest, but almost always the most worthwhile way to create a product that people want and need. There are enough gimmicks out there and good innovation is becoming harder and harder to come by. Instead of pleasing shareholders, maybe we need to go back to our roots and please our customers.

-Calaber24p