
The Five Habits of Great Innovators  - F_J_H
http://www.fastcompany.com/1733244/the-five-habits-of-great-innovators
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apl
Based on six to seven years of careful research, I'm pleased to announce that
I can add several qualities to that list. Innovators generally:

    
    
      1) Interact with their environment in some way.
      2) Acquire between one and a hundred languages.
      3) Breathe oxygen.
      4) Innovate somewhere in some way.
    

Seriously, though, why do these fluff pieces never acknowledge phenomena like
survivorship bias or inherent sampling error? I know plenty of people with
these qualities who innovate nothing at all. Is this about necessary
conditions, as opposed to sufficient ones? Is it just about neat correlations
devoid of actual significance? Why do we never look at people who try but fail
at innovating? Their biographies are equally or _more_ instructive.

Well, enough complaining. The world is in dire need of sub-par business
blogging. Continue.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Horoscopes had this covered long long ago. Write in a way that's meaningless
but seems meaningful (as a Sagittarius you are driven by your impulses, though
usually tempered by a strong reason, etc, etc, etc.) There's always been a
market for such drivel in every form.

Treat the ideas in such articles like scientific theories. Are they specific
enough? Do they make specific predictions? Are they falsifiable? What does the
evidence say? This article doesn't provide any insight whatsoever on
innovators, it might as well be a horoscope.

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6ren
Re: #4, Disruptive Mindset - I'm reading Christensen's third book on
disruption, where he talks about 1. the "shield" of asymmetric motivation
(competitors don't care about this market - but you do); and 2. the "sword" of
asymmetric skills (where over time, you build up the skills of making your
technology work, reaching your customers, and making money out of the business
model - but your competitor hasn't).

And I'm thinking it may be applicable like this: 1. work on creating a
product/service that you personally would find interesting and worthwhile as a
user. This automatically won't be what the established companies are doing
(it's boring); yet will have some benefit to it, even if the initial version
doesn't yet exhibit it. 2. find customers who also value that, and _serve_
them. Work hard at making the business work.

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hanifvirani
One of the most important requisite to be able to innovate is solitude. The
ability to disconnect from the crowd, clear out your brain, spend some time
with yourself, look within for your own voice and thoughts, and reflect upon
them. You need to practice this to be able to mental time travel, to realize
interconnected systems, to be able to shift frames, to be an “outthinker” with
a disruptive mindset, to gather enough passion to influence others.

One simple quote from the article that I liked:

 _"Sometimes just changing your perspective reveals the answer"_

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Vlasta
I doubt those are habits, they seem more like abilities. A lot of people have
these abilities, but great innovators can also manage themselves and actually
do something...

Uhm, and there were no Taoists 5000 years ago.

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josepher
Well, I have zero of those habits. I suppose it's good that I wasn't planning
on innovating anytime soon, then.

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InclinedPlane
If it were so easy to break down the process of innovation into an objective
list of attributes then these people wouldn't be writing these articles they'd
be founding companies and changing industries.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, write articles about doing.

