Innovation does not start with ideas

Innovations might come from ideas, but ideas might not lead to innovations.

Innovations enable us to make small steps, big jumps and giant leaps in the direction that we choose to go. But searching for, and realising, those innovations involves more than searching for, and developing, ideas.

An idea might be a key that fits a lock, that opens a door, on a route, through a barrier to our chosen direction. But in our search for ideas that might be keys, it is useful to know the direction, the barriers, the routes, the doors and the locks.

An idea is not the beginning of the development of an innovation. It is not even the end of the beginning. It might, however, be the beginning of the end.