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Once upon a time, not so long ago (in the 1950s), innovation – cloaked as advertising, product development, or brand management – was all about being creative.   Innovation depended, so it was believed, on having a sufficient number on staff of bona fide “creatives” (art directors, copywriters, industrial designers, media producers, and above the fray, godlike creative directors allegedly endowed with semi-mystical powers to deduce consumers’ wants and needs). 

With the coming of the Space Race and the elevation of Science as a priesthood, artistic sense and intuition became suspect.  In the 1960s and especially the 1970s, market research, embodying many social science methodologies, became the dominant force driving this customer-centered innovation.  In the 1990s, proponents of human-centric innovation rediscovered anthropology and ethnography, awarding them the innovation-leading role formerly the property of conventional market research. 

Recently, the trend has come full circle, with creatives – intuitives, described in the work of sociologist Richard Florida as the “creative class”– once again the stars of innovation.

How does all this play out in the field?  If you were charged with managing your organization’s innovation process, where would you locate its center of gravity on the innovation continuum between research-determined and creativity-determined?

The business literature isn’t clear on the relationship between creativity and research.  More often than not, observers use innovation and creativity synonymously (though we who work in the field can vouch that they are not the same thing) and research is often described as a means to an end, the end being creativity-inspired innovation that is “human-centered,” “trend-directed,” and strategic.   This is quite a hedge.  It covers all the bases, making no meaningful distinctions.  Similar oft-repeated generalities provide little guidance to innovation managers who must deploy limited resources to maximum effect and produce innovations that concretely benefit the organization. 

One factor that contributes to this indecision is a lack of adequate metrics for valuing innovations per se and as they are translated into products and services in the field.  In August 2008, the Boston Consulting Group published Measuring Innovation 2008: Squandered Opportunities, a scathing critique of corporations’ inadequate methods for measuring the value of innovations as reported by the executives themselves.  If the effectiveness of various innovations cannot be measured, it cannot be correlated with innovations’ respective mixes of research and creativity.  We are at a loss to pronounce general rules for spending or specific rules for spending under special circumstances. 

(An accompanying BCG report, Innovation 2008:  Is the Tide Turning? surveyed the same executives and discovered deep discontent with ROI on innovation expenditures.)

When it comes to the quality of innovations, the jury’s out on the value of spending for research versus spending for creativity – or is it, spending for research and creativity?  The experts remain divided on the issue, often depending (it seems) on their own capabilities or commitment to one intellectual ideology or another.  This is an area that GEMBA is following.  As we discover answers for ourselves, we’ll be sure to share them with you, too.