Fixing the flaws in innovation

(Feb. 2024) Are you confusing innovation with invention? If so, listen to this interview with Curtis Carlson, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston and CEO of his own consultancy.

By itself, novelty does not equal innovation, Carlson tells Huawei Editor-in-Chief Gavin Allen. Too often, new products or services are not founded on a business model that enables them to thrive commercially. In that case, “it's an invention, not an innovation.”

The key ingredient for success is to identify not simply a problem, but an actual unmet need. “People want to build things, especially engineers,” Carlson says. “They see a problem, they jump to a solution, they want to build it, and they don't go through the process of reflection and reframing.”

Carlson believes it’s urgent that we fix the innovation process itself. That, he says, is “the most important innovation in the world. It's the only way we're going to solve our environmental problems, our poverty problems, and our health problems.”