I AGREE with each of the Misconceptions you have described.
They are frequently acted upon and continue to result in much wasted time, effort, money, and unrealized good intentions.

YOU REQUEST a statement or description of what makes the company/work of the reader innovative at the end of your article. Here is my contribution.

MY FINDINGS apply to the research and work which I have done over the past 12 years, in particular, as well as much of my earlier life and efforts. My work has been centered around doing what other people frequently refer to as impossible. I have learned enhanced HTML and compatible website design and introduced considerable empowerment content to the Internet with no formal HTML training and at almost no cost.

I have recovered from, and assisted others in recovering from --- often fatal and/or chronic long-term illnesses and destructive behaviour problems. I have designed super energy-efficient low-tech housing at a time when such was just beginning to become a concern to a few persons. I have provided sought after customer service in the minicomputer service and installation field.

I have used innovation to resolve a tremendous number of challenges in a constructive, and often unusual, manner. So what do I define as important components of Innovation?

CRUCIAL ASPECTS of Innovation as I have frequently found and benefited from:

1. Attitude;
2. Experience;
3. Knowledge;
4. Persistence;
5. Willingness to change.

A CONFIDENT, POSITIVE, MOTIVATED ATTITUDE is a good foundation for the expression of innovation. A few people are born with a Basic Personality characteristic of Innovation; others have to work at it. Innovation is currently talked about often as positive. The reality is that innovation is guarded against in any human-authority or leader-oriented culture ... from a paternalistic family to tribes/institutions/nations/companies. Most of our so-called leaders and executives do not want, like, or cope well with opposing or challenging opinions. Human history is full of examples of the repression of innovation. A strong Ego and positive self-direction are contributors to an Innovation attitude. The originality of innovation is often individualism and frequently pro-social and pro-survival.

CULTURAL ATTITUDE enhances or represses an individual's attitude.
A failure to recognize cultural restrictions on Innovation is an invitation to replicate and maintain environments which deny or do not reward innovation. Most schooling is carried out by teachers who assume and enforce their authority as experts. In turn, they have most often been taught theories (best guesses) by other, more elevated social authorities, which present their experiences or information as rules.

AUTHORITARIAN STATEMENTS are frequently identifiable by their liberal use of words like "should", "always", "never", "will", "is", and "right". In reality, there are few absolutes. Like the direction of a military General, there is nothing to question and no choice. Your decision is made for you and a failure to follow can meet with severe penalties. Innovators are poor followers.

ENCOURAGING INNOVATION occurs through the communication and behavior of the individual and the organization. In my writing and in my seminars, I try to use the above-mentioned words as little as possible and replace them with the more relevant and realistic words of "could", "sometimes", "often", "frequently", "can", "constructive", "effective".

This form of communication is both empowering and demanding.
Some people who have been brainwashed into passive-aggressive communication patterns, reject it. What they want is more of the same. That, too often, is rules, codes, and direction from others. That effectively makes all of their decisions for them. Relevancy takes a lot of time and space to attach to information.

IMPATIENCE and DEFENSIVENESS from authorities and leaders result in relevancy being excluded and information often being expressed with non-relevancy, as rules and judgements. The innovative youngster, or initiate, will likely question these assumptions and expectations. And we know that they will often receive penalty, discouragement, denial, sarcasm, ridicule, ostracism ... for their effort. At an early age in non-band-organized societies, we learn NOT to be innovative. "Just do as you are told."

WORSHIP OF HUMAN AUTHORITY is supported in most of our schools, churches, hospitals, doctor's offices, professional services, military academies, and, businesses. Are we really that afraid of innovation, or, or we simply that proud of our authority and the power it brings us? As we should know by now, power without relevancy inevitably leads to abuse. Abuse destroys self-esteem and self-confidence and increases fear and anger. Intolerance breeds intolerance. All of these contributions limit and deny Innovation. I have always found that if I want Innovation, I have to provide adequate opportunity.

A HIGH DEGREE OF SELF-AWARENESS and AUTHORITY AWARENESS must be developed by the naturally innovative personality in order to cope constructively in an oft-negative culture. Unless a culture, business or otherwise, encourages these components with responsible assertiveness training, empathy-training, and team building skills ... there is little incentive for any person in the organization to be innovative. I took this route and encouraged it with those whom I worked with. Attitude is how we approach opportunities and challenges.

WHAT IS AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH?
We can try to make past alternatives fit based on the experience of others.
We can develop our own experiences through testing and feedback in the present. We can project the potential for new directions and effectiveness in the future by confidence and self-esteem. Any combination of these 3 can provide us with an effective option, or, failure. An attitude of Innovation means that you freely are aware of all of these and equally consider them. I believe that if you want your organization to allow for an innovative attitude to develop and survive, you must supply or ensure that skills which support self-esteem are present in the cultural environment you are providing.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE is what can enable the innovation of the individual to be practical, relevant, directed, and truly creative. Simply playing around and shooting in the dark is little more than an effort of imagination and desperation. Billions of dollars have been spent by free enterprise in an effort to "force" innovation. The productivity of such efforts has always been paltry compared to the near penniless inventor. If the person has been provided with a sense of over-optimism, devastation can also occur. Spoiling children with unwarranted rewards and encouragement can be just as limiting as destroying them with unwarranted penalties and criticism. Either way, they are deceived about reality.

AN ASSERTIVE APPROACH seeks to both acknowledge, reward and penalize according to what is relevant. I make an effort to provide many more positive real acknowledgements than criticisms. I also take the time to "own" my comments and not pass them off as authoritarian absolutes. When others treat me accordingly, I feel free to share my experience of reality with them. I find that Innovation diminishes when we deny this in others. They start quoting "authorities" and stop asserting themselves. Innovators must be assertive to be successful in expanding the influence of their innovation.

IMPATIENCE destroys the opportunity for Innovation.
Yes, many of us are gifted with this trait as a behavior block. We can dissolve the block away in a variety of ways and take back our freedom. First, we have to want to improve by seeing the destructiveness of impatience. Secondly, we have to acknowledge that such is our problem or we can do nothing to reframe the origins of this potentially compulsive behavior.

Rushing to action on imaginative or projected so-called innovation has proven disastrous many times. Building a better anything which the potential customer is not able to or not motivated to purchase = failure. Basing research and scientific programs and huge expenditures on self-deceptive imagination continues to yield very little constructively in return for billions of dollars of expenditure. Impatience neither allows the time for a quality of experience to yield innovation nor does it provide the time for a quality of feedback to contribute to innovation.

ENTHUSIASM IS NOT ENOUGH.
Trying to bring realistic innovations to market too soon, too often, ... can result in a pro-change attitude reacting to repeated failure by conversion into a non-innovation, pro-status-quo, defeated self-esteem approach. Thinking which is short-term and which does not reflect on previous accomplishments and failures is likely to result in more failures. This is not because one wants to fail or because one has not tried hard enough. It is the result of a lack of innovation.

FOCUSING ON THE VALUE AND RELEVANCY of one's experiences and leveraging those by seeking other alternatives to match other realities of relevancy ... broaden both intelligence, coping abilities, innovation, and, success. This did not come "naturally" for me. That is, on a few issues, I found that repeated failures were occurring where I least expected and least desired them. No one and no resource gave me constructive feedback and it would have been easy for my enthusiasm to become replaced by despair. I was motivated to succeed --- so I took a wider view through reflection and meditation, and, innovated a solution. I found that Innovation required a somewhat stable process for it to be realistically engaged in. I had to find a more dependable process.

KNOWLEDGE CAN BE GAINED through an application of an innovative attitude in an environment which encourages innovation when tempered by an awareness of the importance of relevancy. For knowledge to really become a contribution to innovation, more personal effort is often needed. By responding to changing market demands and personal circumstances, I chose to train in and for a number of occupations. You can choose to be a master of some, a few, or of none.

Fortunately, for me, I was a perfectionist earlier in life and became a master of most of the professions I entered. It took me longer to acknowledge that no matter how much I wanted to do others successfully, I was not suited for them and would be better off leaving those for others to contribute. Each profession can provide you with experience, training, and alternatives which are relevant and effective for that field. At some point, many fields are inter-related. After all, they are each practiced on the Earth by humans.

CONSTRUCTIVE TEAMWORK CAN ENCOURAGE INNOVATION.
In a company, professionals representing different disciplines can work together as a team. This is only constructive if each member of the team acknowledges the experience, concerns, and contributions of each of the others. That is often easier said than done. Many of us have grown up in a culture which does not teach assertiveness nor encourage positive self-esteem. Without one or both of these, it is almost impossible for the individual to be innovative on either a personal or a business level. If you do not respect yourself first, it is difficult to respect others, sincerely.

AN INTRANET-ORIENTED APPROACH to teamwork is being demonstrated by a few companies by allowing all of their employees to contact and request assistance or feedback from any one, some, or all of the employees of the organization. Inherent in the cost-reducing, customer service enhancement, and employee innovation benefits of Intranet use has been the introduction of a corporate culture which assumes respect for each employee. Standards applying to e-mail use and customer satisfaction priority are often stated.

Intranets and Extranets are an adaptation of the wider user-group approach to knowledge building and innovation which began with the genesis of online bulletin boards --- before the Internet. Again, the precursor of attitude and its tempering with responsible self-assertiveness, empathy, and a team approach --- will lead to success or failure. Many user-groups and chat sites have become intelligence-gathering failures because their contributors have demonstrated intolerance, egotism, deception, and abuse.

MODERATED NEWS SITES have sprung up to offset this trend.
Without carefully considered and stated stipulations, even moderated sites can limit publication of innovative responses by the assumptions and expectations of the moderator. If the participants lack respect for each other and have no way of limiting the breadth of the audience to relevant membership --- innovation will be avoided. In my own business, I have sought to target my audiences.

THE KEY IS RELEVANT KNOWLEDGE.
I have met others who have many degrees in a variety of disciplines yet have little ability to express innovation. This is largely because most educational certificates and diplomas are provided on the demonstrated ability to remember theory-based knowledge and authority-based/biased maxims.

THE DEFINITION of what is "acceptable" as the subject and its treatment in theses, articles, and research projects --- often has more to do with the bias of the professor or instructor than to innovation for the purpose of effective and practical advancement and application. What is missing is the ingredient of relevancy. Innovation is seldom motivated by a desire to be rewarded by the status quo.

For Innovation, the "WHY", "WHEN", "WHERE", of alternatives is desirable in addition to the "HOW". These extra qualifications of information provide a level of quality, not just quantity. It doesn't just happen. The individual needs to be aware of the limitations of the "obvious" and the option of going deeper than the surface and making less errors and more success in the longer-term.

TIME LIMITATIONS and a focus on cost/hour defeat this requirement when the focus is too narrow. There are many times, some of them life-threatening, when an inability to reconsider alternatives which proved inappropriate at earlier times, would have resulted in fatality in the near-term. Are you or your staff disqualifying alternatives with "Never again." statements because they were found ineffective at one crucial point in your search?

PERSISTENCE is required if any innovation is to survive.
The quality of a result is frequently related to the quality of the process and the effort leading up to and put into the development of that result. As noted above, if you are willing to discard 90% of the potential intelligence of each experience because you lack the will, confidence, and stamina to search and define further --- you probably will fail. Innovators also fail. The difference is that they learn from their failures.

INNOVATORS CONVERT FAILURES INTO SUCCESSES.
They convert each failure into a success by wresting some aspect of intelligence from it. They look for WHY it failed and try to keep in mind the factors which, at a later point, and under different circumstances ... could require this approach to lead to a success. You can't look to the status quo for reward and support at his stage. Most often you are told that what you are seeking to innovate about is impossible, or, that you have worked too long at it, or, that they simply don't think you are smart enough to do it. Innovation requires a strong Ego.

Just how important is persistence?
Probably 100 times more innovations, which could succeed, fail --- because the innovator lacked stamina. Creating a new idea or design is not enough. This fact can be tremendously disheartening to an "ideas" person, until, they recognize the wider reality of the business world, human psychology and sociology, and, innovation itself.

If the innovator truly wants to reach the success of action and results, he or she may have to acquire or attract the skills necessary to convert the idea or design into a prototype, product, or service. Again, this shows the "maturity" required of the true innovator. On the one hand the innovator requires a strong Ego to withstand the unfortunate yet inevitable negativity and discouragement of most of our society. On the other hand, the innovator requires a strong self-awareness and empathy together with excellent communication skills so that her or his achievement can be shared with the majority and so reward will be returned accordingly.

FOR THE UNDISCIPLINED INNOVATOR, these "skills" may seem demeaning or simplistic when placed beside the ego-applauding aspect of intellectual endeavour. Yet, if marketing, sales, administration, distribution, customer service, production, and other factors are not effectively handled --- the best innovation will fail. History is replete with examples of lesser products and services winning in business by attending more to the latter than to innovation itself.

Indeed, persistence alone has been frequently shown to = waste.
Dogged persistence can crush any would be innovator by repeatedly demonstrating that failure is the only result. Persistence without the factors mentioned above is often little more than the Ego simply wanting its own way, like a 2-year-old.

HUMILITY is often required of the innovator if she or he wants to receive accurate and direct feedback. Without this sincerity to find the truth or search for the best solution, or in some cases, a workable solution ... the would be innovator is simply trying to find a way out of a mess, or, a way into popularity --- without any fundamental changes in thinking or behavior.

WILLINGNESS TO CHANGE sets the innovator and the innovating company ahead of all others in terms of success in a demanding environment. You can have a positive and exploring attitude, a great expanse of experience, a tremendous resource of knowledge, and never dying persistence --- and fail. If you find a solution and do not have the courage to try it, the effort is in vain.

Many times, I have been Guided in my efforts to try simple solutions to hugely powerful and complex challenges. My rational Ego told me it was too simple to work. It worked! At other times, my status quo SuperEgo encouraged me to accept that the solution to problems which impacted thousands of other people were either socially unacceptable, or, considered impossible by social authorities. Yet the option worked. Even further, by exercising such options more information and experience were gained which disqualified the fears and ignorance that were on the surface.

Change for the sake of change is NOT Innovation.
Often, such an approach is simply desperation. A do-anything is better than hesitation or strategy defining approach. How many times have we heard others mention in reaction to our suggestion to their question: "Done that, been there, (what else is next)?" The possibility that what they may have tried before might be effective NOW completely escapes them. A true innovator does not simply look for the newest or the most expensive or the most sophisticated option or technology. I look for what will do the job most effectively. That must take into account the characteristics of the target audience.

THE BEST TECHNOLOGY, on the Internet, means nothing if it limits access to the audience you want to reach. If you want a wide and large audience, cross-platform compatibility must be a consideration. When I started programming webpages, I had a rudimentary system and I added many of the technological nuances. When I saw, and heard, the page on other machines ... I quickly removed the sounds.

My target audience is the general public.
At the time, they did not, as a majority have sophisticated sound software and hardware capabilities. Without those capabilities, the page was long in loading and sounded terrible. Out came the sounds. The same I would add for my reasons to limit my use of frames (reported as despised by 50% of Internet users), most frequent browser-specific HTML code (not supported by most users), large graphic files, wide color variation, and animations. My pages still provide a lot of information in a colorful format with accessibility by the majority of web visitors.

IN CONCLUSION, ALL of the above factors, I have found repeatedly, are keys to Innovation. Take any one away or exaggerate any and you are likely to unlock failure rather than success. Sometimes innovation can lead to tremendous personal success without a corresponding social or business reward. If we want innovation in companies, we must encourage innovation in our own and the lives of others. That means encouraging the factors and skills noted above and acknowledging constructive innovation at all levels ... not just on the bottom line.

1. Attitude;
2. Experience;
3. Knowledge;
4. Persistence;
5. Willingness to change.

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