Innovation

08/07/2026

The OECD defines innovation as follows: ‘An innovation is a new or improved product or process (or combination thereof) that differs significantly from the unit’s previous products or processes and that has been made available to potential users (product) or brought into use by the unit (process).’

That’s a ‘camel’ of a definition. FIFA could not have done better.

Schumpter defined innovation many ways including as a “creative destruction”. But he also focused on the idea that innovation increases productivity.

Many others have had a go. They all went wrong because, misled by dictionaries, they thought innovation is a verb. It’s not, it’s a noun. The proper definition of innovation according to me is that “innovation increases consumption.”

It’s not how you do it, but what it does, that matters. In fact there are as many ways to do innovation as there are successful innovation stories. The only common feature is the outcome: increased consumption.

Here’s an example based on an argument I had with the machine. The LED light bulb. I had to explain that the overall purpose of the thing was to reduce the overall cost per lumen of light, not necessarily make the light bulb cheaper. When you make something cheaper, people use more of it.

If it doesn’t increase consumption then it’s useless and disappears, and therefore may as well not have existed in the first place. Just like the bear in the woods.

Don’t agree? Find me a counter example. If you know about it then it’s caused extra consumption one way or another.

Accepting all that, and acknowledging that accessible resources as required for consumption are finite, then we can also state that useful innovation itself is a finite and a rapidly depleting quantity.

Where:

Useful innovation = innovation x accessible resources

Use it wisely. Or not.

Which leads me to invention.

Strictly speaking, invention is defined by the patent system which rewards any innovation that is useful and also completely novel to mankind.

In reality, well over 99.999999% of granted patents don’t describe inventions, by the patent system’s own definitions. This is because of the self-interest of those involved in the system, looking the other way as they craft a dishonest living.

A real invention is a useful innovation that would not otherwise have been created in the next century or two. Or ever. There’s maybe one of those a decade, if that.

There you go, you need a crystal ball to measure the alternative universe in order to identify true invention.

And if you had one of those you wouldn’t need invention.

In any case, we will run out of resources well before we run out of stupid ideas and their progenitors.

And then we’ll run out of the progenitors and their kin as well.

We’ll have innovated ourselves off the cliff. Good job, mankind!