What Does Each Part of the Definition of Innovation Mean?

“Innovation transforms the useful seeds of invention into widely adopted solutions valued above every existing alternative.” — Braden Kelley

I’ve refined this definition over many years because each phrase does a specific job:

• “Useful seeds of invention.” Innovation starts with an invention or a new combination of existing ideas. The seed doesn’t have to be yours, and it doesn’t have to be brand-new. Many of the most important innovations recombine or borrow ideas from somewhere else.
• “Transforms.” This is the hard work between idea and impact: developing it, delivering it, building a business model around it, and helping people make the change required to adopt it. It’s where most of the effort — and most of the failure — happens.
• “Widely adopted.” This is the threshold most so-called innovations never cross. Adoption has to happen among the people it was meant for, not just a handful of early enthusiasts.
• “Valued above every existing alternative.” Useful isn’t enough. An innovation must be valuable enough that people willingly switch to it. And the alternative includes doing nothing, or sticking with the workaround people already use.

I explain why I define innovation this way — and why every organization needs a clear definition of its own — in this short video: What Is Innovation? (Ask the Consultant, Episode One).

Useful gets an idea noticed. Valuable gets it adopted.

How Is Innovation Different From Invention, Creativity, and Improvement?

These words get used interchangeably, but they describe different things:

Creativity and invention are inputs to innovation. Improvement can be extremely valuable, but it usually makes the existing solution better rather than replacing it. Innovation requires both adoption and displacement: people stop doing things the old way because they found something better. For a deeper look at how invention, innovation, and lasting impact differ, see 7 Differences Between Invention, Innovation, and Impact (With Examples).

What Are Some Examples of Innovation?

Here are well-known examples that pass every part of the definition — across products, services, processes, and business models:

• The smartphone. For most people, it replaced a separate phone, camera, music player, and paper map — because they valued one connected device above all of those alternatives.
• Streaming video. It displaced DVD rental because watching instantly at home was valued above a trip to the store and late fees.
• Mobile money (M-Pesa in Kenya). It let people without bank accounts send, receive, and store money using a basic mobile phone — and it was widely adopted because it beat carrying cash or relying on informal transfers.
• The shipping container. A process innovation that standardized how goods are moved, transforming the cost and speed of global trade.
• The surgical safety checklist. A low-tech innovation in how care is delivered, showing that innovation doesn’t require advanced technology — just a better way that people adopt.

And here are famous near misses that show what the definition demands:

• Google Glass. An impressive invention that was never widely adopted by consumers, who didn’t value it above the phone already in their pocket — and had real concerns about privacy and social acceptance.
• The Segway. Novel and useful, but for most people it wasn’t valued above walking, cycling, or driving.

The difference between these two lists isn’t the sophistication of the technology. It’s whether people chose it.

Why Does Your Organization Need a Clear Definition of Innovation?

Without a shared definition, everything new gets labeled innovation — the hackathon, the lab, the app update, the rebrand. That funds activity instead of outcomes and makes it easy to mistake motion for progress. I describe the most common versions of this costume in 7 Types of Innovation Theater.

A clear definition does three things for an organization:

1. It aligns funding. If innovation requires adoption, you fund the work of getting people to adopt — not just the work of building.
2. It aligns measurement. You measure adoption, value, and what got replaced, not idea counts. For how to do that, see 12 Metrics That Actually Measure Innovation Value.
3. It aligns responsibility. Someone has to own adoption, not just invention.

My advice is simple: choose a definition, then spread it widely so that everyone — not only the innovation team — uses the same standard.

An organization that can’t define innovation can’t manage it, measure it, or fund it well.

How Can You Tell If Something Is Really an Innovation?

Use this four-question test, drawn directly from the definition:

1. Is it useful? Does it solve a real problem for real people?
2. Is it valued above every existing alternative — including doing nothing?
3. Has it been widely adopted by the people it was meant for?
4. Did people willingly switch from what they used before?

If the answer to all four is yes, you have an innovation. If not, you may have a promising invention, a valuable improvement, or a pilot that hasn’t crossed the adoption threshold yet.

I’d add one human-centered question: adopted by whom, and better for whom? An innovation that wins customers while burning out employees or harming a community deserves a harder look.

Innovation isn’t measured at launch. It’s measured by what people stop using because they found something better.

FAQ: What Is Innovation?