First of all, innovation methodology must be distinguished from scientific research methodology and scientific discovery methodology.
Innovation refers to: using existing knowledge and materials to improve or create new things (including but not limited to various methods, elements, paths, environments, etc.) in a specific environment, and Behavior that can achieve certain beneficial effects. According to the definition of "innovation", "Innovation is not science or technology, but value.... Innovation is not just something that happens between organizations, but a change outside the organization. Innovation should be based on its impact on the environment To measure. Therefore, innovation in an industrial and commercial enterprise must always be market-centered. If innovation is product-centered, it is likely to produce some 'technical miracles', but the rewards will be disappointing." (This is equivalent to using technology as the center. If an invention patent is shelved and cannot achieve market value, it cannot be said to be innovation. Therefore, innovation is not based on scientific discoveries or technical inventions, but on achieving market value.
< p>What should be particularly noted here is that there is a huge difference between the results of discovery or invention and the transformation of these results into new products and services, and it is the latter that can be called innovation in the true sense. The labor and cost involved are much greater and more difficult than the former (i.e., discovery and invention). There was an article in "Science Times" on August 14, 2002 titled "Promoting the Industrialization of Patented Technology from Enterprises as the Main Body." The article said: “According to statistical forecasts, the actual efficiency of patented technologies and products in Zhejiang Province is 40%, with Ningbo, Wenzhou, Taizhou, Shaoxing and other cities as high as over 50%. This is because the province regards patent work as a matter of overall development of the province. Especially the results of basic and comprehensive work on the overall situation of technological innovation.” (If the invention of patents is confused with the innovation of industrializing patented technologies, it will be very harmful in practice and people will misunderstand. If there is an invention, there will be innovation. In fact, the latter is much more difficult. If you don't realize this, the low conversion rate of technological inventions is inevitable.The reason why Silicon Valley is innovative. The cradle of Silicon Valley is the habitat of innovation and entrepreneurship because it is “not limited to scientific progress or technological breakthroughs.” “What makes Silicon Valley unique is not the technologies invented here, but the development of these technologies. , exploit and bring it to market locally created companies. In other words, the story of Silicon Valley is the history of technology development and market application by companies, especially innovative companies (Start-Ups).”
It can be seen from the above that innovation, discovery and invention are not the same thing, and their costs and prices are also different. As Drucker pointed out: "As an empirical rule, if it costs money to produce a new idea. One dollar. For every ten dollars spent on research to turn it into a new discovery or invention, at least ten dollars must be spent on 'development'. Spend a hundred dollars on 'development' and it costs a thousand or ten thousand dollars to introduce and establish a new product or a new business in the market. Only after a new product or a new enterprise is established can we say that there is an 'innovation'."
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor at Harvard Business School in the United States and a famous innovation research expert, pointed out, “Innovation first means people can quickly understand a market need. "Decades of product research have shown that users are the first factor that stimulates innovation...Companies leading technology development now realize that they must create a new business concept rather than simply excellent technology." "Peter Senge, author of "The Fifth Discipline" said: "When a new idea is proven feasible in the laboratory, engineers call it an 'invention' (lnvention), and only if it can be implemented in an appropriate manner. When the idea can be repeatedly produced stably at a scale and realistic cost, the idea becomes an 'innovation'."
So, innovation is not the same thing as discovery and invention. Therefore, Their methodologies are naturally different. Secondly, innovation involves huge uncertainties and risks.
Scientific discoveries or technological inventions are also uncertain, and their results cannot be predicted in advance or guaranteed to be successful. In this sense, discovery and invention also have risks, but this risk is incomparable with the uncertainty and risk of innovation, which is much greater.
When talking about the uncertainty and risks of innovation, Nathan Rosenberg, a well-known innovation research expert and professor of economics at Stanford University, particularly emphasized that “innovation attempts often end in failure,” and pointed out Nine forms of financial risk.
Because there are so many uncertainties in innovation, the possibility of failure is very high. “Even 3M, which can correctly predict 95% of the consequences of contemporary technology, admits that 50% of its Irrelevant products or world-first innovations failed. Only one of every three products launched by Gillette achieved market success, and these three products were derived from 100 preliminary technical studies." The risks of innovation are great. Moreover, the uncertainty and risk of innovation are directly proportional to the expectations of the innovation subject, that is, the higher the expectations and the larger the scale, the greater the risk. Drucker said, "The vast majority of innovative ideas will not produce meaningful results. Innovative ideas are like frog eggs, only one or two will mature after hatching 1,000. Therefore, managers in innovative organizations require those who have innovative Thinkers should think carefully about what needs to be done in order to turn innovative ideas into a product, a production process, a business or a process technology. "What Drucker refers to here is innovation in the usual sense. of innovation, he asked people to pay attention to and explore the innovation process.
Von Braun, author of the book "The War on Innovation," said of the discussion about the company's innovation process: "This discussion shows that despite the wealth of innovation experience accumulated in this century, Successfully introducing a new product into the market still involves significant risks, neither knowing clearly how to best develop it nor determining in advance whether an innovation will ultimately be successful.”
There is no doubt that, as pointed out earlier, discoveries and inventions also have risks and costs, but compared with innovative activities, the risks will be much smaller. Because innovation must also be linked to the market, and the risks in the market are much greater than the risks that may be encountered in discoveries and inventions in the laboratory. From the above discussion, we can know that innovation in the original sense is a bridge connecting science and technology and economy, and is the fundamental way to transform science and technology into productivity. Therefore, we must emphasize that innovation is greater than technology. Innovation is not just economics, but technology grows into the economy. This is innovation. Give an example from the history of technological innovation. In the 1870s, German chemist Justus Von Liebig proposed the theory of three elements (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) for crop growth (this was a discovery). In 1909, German chemist Fritz Haber first used air to of nitrogen and hydrogen to synthesize ammonia (this was invented). Haber's invention was soon accepted and adopted by the German Baden Aniline Soda Ash Company. However, from the invention to the production of the product, it went through countless tests. Just to obtain a more ideal catalyst, it went through more than 20,000 tests. The first synthetic ammonia plant was completed and put into operation in 1913. This process is the innovation process, and discovery and invention are only part of this process. Of course, this does not mean to underestimate the significance of discovery and invention. Without discovery, invention and innovation, it would become a tree without roots and water without a source. This innovation process can be expressed by the following formula:
R&D→P&S→M→V
·P&D means research and development, that is, the scientific and technological process;
·P&S new products and services
·M represents market
·V represents value
This is an innovation process , study whether this process has a logical reasoning procedure, whether there is a model or method, this is the innovation methodology. However, as will soon be discovered below, this formula is an early innovative linear program that is now far more complex than this program.