incremental vs radical innovation

I attended a presentation on "innovation" during the week. It was definitely fascinating.

Applied to business, there are 3 levels of creativity >>> corporate innovation, group creativity and individual creativity.

At a corporate level, there are incremental innovations (left brain, see below) that represent marginal and tidy change and there are radical innovations (right brain, see below) that represent quantum but discontinuous, messy change. It takes strong management to not kill radical innovations.

For group creativity or brainstorming, there has to be an environment where there is no criticism, there is quantity of ideas before quality, freewheeling thoughts and ideas are welcomed, there is encouragement of wild ideas. This environment can be created by good management.

At a personal level, there is left brain thinking (speech, numbers, logic, rational, memories and vertical thinking) and right brain thinking (spatial, tactile, colour, emotions, images, artistic, irrational, illogical, imaginative and lateral thinking). These differences can explain some of the angst that develops sometimes when people have discussions ... never moreso than here on HotCopper.

It strikes me that Underground Coal Gasification is a potentially emerging industry in need of radical innovative thinking ... and to "break through", its proponents will have to deal with a lot of left brain thinking in regulatory, political, corporate and financial spheres.

No doubt companies looking to commercialise UCG will need left brain thinking to work through the maze to deliver a project ... but at regular intervals, there should be intense sessions of right brain thinking and brainstorming to search for lateral solutions to conventional problems and conventional dealings, conventional perceptions and prejudices.

These threads have every place and right to brainstorm, debate, discuss and chatter ... and if the environment isnt critical of individuals and companies and isn't contrained by conventional thinking then it can at times go places business journalists and broker analysts haven't yet dreamed of 8))

Lets keep things in the right space in here.

Dex