In the two years since I've been writing IdeaFlow, I've never posted anything that has received the response than What Drives Innovation? has received.

It's a good thing, because I do intend to continue to explore that topic. Because there've been a lot of comments on the blog, and a lot of you only see the posts in email, I'm going to summarize and comment on some of the comments here in a post. To read the entire set of comments, clickhere

John Wolpert commented by email that I should take a look at Eric von Hippel's The Sources of Innovation . Wrote John: "Eric von Hippel is the undisputed leader of this sort of inquiry. His Sources of Innovation is a staple, and I'm sure you've heard of or read it. There is quantitative support for your point there in his research on user-driven innovation, but I can't recall where in his studies the lion's share of sources came from."

I've got the book, am looking at it, but haven't yet found appropriate quantitative support for my point. I agree with John though -- von Hippel's focus on the economics of innovation (or, an "analysis of the 'temporary rents' or economic profits expected by potential innovators) does speak to my idea about the drivers of innovation. Von Hippel's focus was narrower -- he was looking for the "functional source of innovation," while I would like to be able to
sketch out all the sources in a given situation, or all the possible sources. Not all of these sources are going to be functional, by von Hippel's definition. But they will still be drivers.

David Locke commented: "Product managers show up after version 1.0. Customers start getting heard sometime after that. You might also notice that innovation moves from radical to continuous with the advent of the product managers. If we want to change this, we need to start with independent product managers that have a collection of widely distributed, heterogeneous customers. These product managers would in turn establish a market for the requirement orginating from this network."

Also -- "Typically, marketing is going to bias the customer base away from the heterogeneous. ... Does this imply that the company has no chance to find a radical innovation after the advent of the product manager? Is the arrival of the product manager the end of radical innovation?"

My take -- According to Clayton Christensen, the established customer is never going to be the source of radical, disruptive innovation. Christensen places part of the blame on traditional marketing segmentation, and I don't disagree. But perhaps it's more simple -- customers drive continuous innovation, while consumers drive radical innovation. By "consumers" I mean people who are NOT customers yet, because they have needs you are not meeting, that are quite radically different form the needs of your existing customers. Anthony Ulwick writes a lot about this too.

Naina Redhu listed some external factors other than customers: regulations, the market, competitors, and global changes. These are great additions to the external drivers I had mentioned: new technology which may be coming from outside), competition, suppliers. What's fascinating to me is that the particulars of the list will probably be constantly shifting. It would be great to sketch out the overall picture, though.

Ben Simonton commented: "Innovation drivers will always exist, but whether or not they will be noticed and acted upon mostly depends on the extent to which company leadership causes employees to use their brain at work." He went on to describe a "superior leadership strategy" that will make employees innovative.

He brushed up against something that's important but that I did not point out in my original post -- that primarily it will be company employees who notice and act on innovation drivers. I think this is true for the most part whether the drivers are internal or external.

Amy Pearl responded to Ben's comment, saying that she had just left a company that had a reputation as an innovators, but "I learned that innovations encounter huge resistance when they run against what has been defined as "standard practice" or they fall outside those groups charged with "being innovative". While it is clear that standards need to be in place, there is a new need to create internal strategies that enable innovations (especially with proven track records) to be recognized and examined for the value they might bring to the larger organization."

She asked a question I'm going to put out to everyone: "I would be interested in learning what new procedures, policies, or practices companies are adopting or developing to literally identify and recognize, and subsequently analyze, true innovations. What do companies do, in concrete terms, that raise up a new practice or strategy and allow it to flourish, as well as be explored? I have enjoyed reviewing Deloitteinnovation.com as a company that seems to have figured out ways to support its growth... Any others?"