Guy Kawasaki in his presentation on the Art of the Start 2.0 for the Graduate Studies Program of the Singularity University proposed that innovation and especially the creation of meaning is driven by a very basic questions. He proposed the following:
- Isn’t this interesting? The famous example of this is 3M’s Post-it. During an attempt by Dr. Spencer Silver to develop a super-strong adhesive he accidentally created a “low-tack”, reusable, pressure-sensitive adhesive. Wasn’t that interesting? It still took some time and many obstacles, but that eventually resulted in the post-it. Read more here.
- Therefore what? Guy makes the point that innovation can be driven by imagining what can be created, and gives the example of the camera integrated in the phone. Instagram was not born from the vision of a world in which all phones are connected to the internet and had a great camera. Instead, as internet capable phones with cameras emerged, more likely someone extrapolated the opportunity. Phone with cameras. Therefore what?
- How to do it differently? The classic example is the development of the personal computer. Why do we had to go into the office to work on mainframe computers, isn’t there a better way? Why can we have a small yet powerful computer at home?
These 3 questions appear to be rooted in a few fundamental approaches to innovation; on the one side by improving or building on what exists, and on the other side by either observing what is, or imagining beyond what is. This resulted in the above 2×2 matrix, and the formulation of a possible 4th question: “how to do it better” commonly referred to as incremental innovation.