Remarkable Business Innovation Examples to Stimulate Thinking

Our agency focuses on creativity and innovation. From time to time we post interesting tidbits on creative thinking in general. But our real attention is the process of creating more business innovation examples from idea combination.

An idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of old elements.

– James Webb Young

Here are some great innovation examples to stimulate thinking on this subject.

As background, our perspective on creativity and innovation is very simple. It is not about invention. Rather it is about collecting and connecting dots — bringing together two (or more) ideas to create an altogether new idea.

We live in the age of digital disruption, a time when businesses are challenged to adapt to significant transformation or die. That’s not an exaggeration in an era where many brands are both materializing and disappearing daily.

Technology is advancing faster than the new applications for it, and our competitors are innovating also at a rapid rate. So the need for new ideas and innovation is very intense, as survival depends on it.

Related: Does a Paradox on Innovation Design and Creativity Exist in Business?

We often think of innovation as inventing new things, but we may be smarter to think of it as recombining old ones. The truth is that important breakthroughs usually come from combining ideas from different domains. Often very different, sometimes weird ideas.

A recent example is the Apple ecosystem.  There were plenty of digital music players around when Steve Jobs and Apple launched the iPod. Note he also combined his player with iTunes, which made the content both more accessible and palatable to music companies.  He then threw new products into the mix – the i-Phone, i-Pad and now Siri – creating more combinations and even greater value.

Marrying ideas has been around for ages, quite literally. One of the greatest inventions of all? One contender is Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press. Before Gutenberg, all books had been copied by hand or stamped out with woodblocks.

Around 1450 in Strasbourg, Gutenberg combined two ideas to invent printing with moveable type. He coupled the flexibility of a coin punch with the power of a wine press. His invention enabled the production of books and the spread of knowledge and ideas throughout the Western World.

The secret to problem solving and innovation is curiosity. You generate lots of ideas to find the best of the best. By generating ideas you start by asking lots of questions. By being curious. By thinking widely and not discarding ideas too soon.  By convergent thinking. All of which help us to better understand and define the changes we are looking for.

Are you looking for ways of generating more innovative ideas by combining 2 or more different ideas? Consider these areas to stimulate your thinking:

Changing business models

Business models are often neglected when considering new ideas for your business. They shouldn’t be. One of the best examples of an innovative business model is from Safelite Auto Glass. What’s innovative here you may be thinking? It’s simple. An auto glass repair business that comes to you for your repair. Saving you time and convenience. A value proposition and business model that is hard to top.

Another good example is eBay, reflecting a new model and application of supply, demand, and sales.

Partnerships

Nearly every new idea is a synthesis of other ideas. So a great way to generate ideas is to force combinational possibilities from collaboration and partnerships with other people of diverse professions and skills.

Get a diverse team together and brainstorm how you could mix and combine existing and new ideas together. Combine products with those from wildly different sources.

Combine products and services

This is an easy one to think about. Picture the smartphone product and then envision all the services this product provides by the millions of apps that the smartphone can provide. Absolutely mind-boggling, isn’t it?

Multi-use

Can you come up with new product ideas that have multiple uses? It doesn’t have to be complex. For example imagine a drill, with bits for multiple uses, such as a drill, sander, cleaner, screwdriver, etc.

Adding function to packaging

A simple example of this is the use of milk cartons to display missing persons’ picture and description details. Can you imagine a better place to get this kind of attention?

Extra function

What do you get when you combine a camcorder with an iPod? A digital camcorder that uses a hard drive rather than tape. Up to 7 hours of video on one hard drive. Plus you can do simple edits on the camera – like deleted scenes, even if they are in the middle of your “tape.”

You can set up playlists (like on the iPod). Plus downloading to your computer is as simple as using iTunes. No need for the tape, which slows data transfer significantly.

Dual function

This combination is a little more difficult to imagine. But this really only means there is more upside in this area, yes? Couple of wild dual-function products we would use as examples here.

The first one is an inflatable sleeping coat that doubles as a sleeping bag. It makes camping in the great outdoors a little more convenient.

A second example is a jet ski that converts to a dune buggy with the simple push of a button.

Make it work differently

Take a product and think of an absurd way to make it work. For example, in the developing world batteries are expensive and electricity is unreliable. Imagine a reliable radio that people could wind up by hand.

It exists and has transformed the availability of information in many of the poorest regions of the Earth. Think of what you would get combining a suitcase with a trolley? Simple, a suitcase on rollers. Another example? Combine a bell and a clock to derive an alarm clock.

Weird combinations

Combine products with those from wildly different sources. Take it to the extreme. The more bizarre the combination the more original the ideas that are triggered. An example is the combination of a bridge and canal overpass for boats and walkers.

The bottom line

In your business (or life) how can you combine two ideas together to create something new? Stuck for ideas? Read magazines and rip out pictures or words that you find interesting. This is a great source of new ideas. Force yourself to make combinations.

In doing this, you may get an idea for a new product, a new service, or a new career.

Our message for businesses is simple. Think more like an innovator. Learn the innovation process. Spend time at the front end on what the marketplace needs, rather than trying to build a slick marketing campaign selling your invention. That is the best way to success.

Innovation isn’t about talking, it’s about doing. The action. So get moving and begin your journey from an accidental innovator to a high-performance innovation business leader.

Like anything else, fostering creative business ideas require practice. And distinguishing between creativity, invention, and innovation. So exercise and practice this skill and utilize it in as many areas of your business as you can.

The truth is that innovation is never a single event. It requires the discovery of new insights, the engineering of solutions around those insights, and then the transformation of an industry or field. Technology does not produce progress by itself, we need to find important problems for it to solve and then must change how we work in order to take advantage of it.

So while smartphone apps are cool and add convenience to our lives, the real impact of digital technology lies in front of us, when second-order technologies are applied to completely new problems.

Why not try it with your own products to drive innovation in your business?

So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.

It’s up to you to keep improving your business innovation process and efforts. Lessons are all around you. In some cases, your competitor may be providing ideas and or inspiration. Or collaborating with you. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy improving your creativity, innovation, and ideas?

Do you have a lesson about making your creativity better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find him on Twitter, and LinkedIn.

More reading on creativity and innovation from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

Studying Innovative Change for Creative Business Ideas

Use These Tools to Excel at Effective Collaboration

The Secrets to Building an Innovative Culture