Blog Assignment # 1

The Discipline of Innovation:

A successful entrepreneur may not always have the personality for it rather it has been seen that people who had the least entrepreneurial traits also became successful. The size of the enterprise or its age does not mean anything when the heart of the activity is innovation, therefore, the efforts to change, show the discipline. There are a different sources of innovation which may be instant like a flash of genius or result of a consistent purposeful search of innovation. Unexpected occurrences also are very important for innovation, which may be entirely in the hands of the entrepreneur or even none at all but it surely works, in the case of IBM, they initially made systems for banks in 1933 but instead libraries bought those rejected machines. Incongruities are also a source of innovation, in the case of Alcon laboratories, their cofounder exploited an incongruity in medical technology which related to the cataract operation so rather than cutting off the ligament the eye surgeons they added a preservative to the enzyme that could dissolve the ligament. Process need is also one of the sources of innovation like in Japan the do not have any modern highway system, rather than sabotaging the whole highway system they have reflectors which shows the drivers all other cars coming from six directions, this innovation helped remove the process need. Industry and market changes can also be a source for innovation, in the case of brokerage firm of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, the young men realized that in order to succeed the did not require any capital nor any connections as the financial industry was changing as institutional investors were becoming dominants. Demographic changes can also be a source for innovation, the people who are going to be in the labor force at least 18 years from now must be born already so we need to think ahead of time and the need of the future. Another source of innovation is changes in perception, people with time have started to give great importance to health so this has lead to different innovations relating to having a better health. New knowledge is also one of the great sources of innovation, it takes many years to innovate using new knowledge, economic development was formulated by the Comte de Saint-Simon during the era of Napoleon, however, still first entrepreneurial bank was established after 30 years. All of these show that innovation can vary from genre to genre and have their own time and method to show their results.