Hugh MacLeod Explains Innovation

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I’m in the middle of reading Evil Plans, the excellent new book by Hugh MacLeod, which reminded me of one of my favourites from him. I think this is a pretty good and concise explanation of business model innovation:

One way or another, to innovate successfully you have to be distinctive. In other words, Hugh is right – you have to be the only one that does what you do.

But what if you’re in an established market?

This is where it is very useful to think about products and services as the embodiments of ideas. The way to be distinctive in a market that already has a lot of competitors in it is to change the meaning of whatever it is that you offer.

If you do that, you’ll be the only one that does what you do.

(the picture is from Hugh’s daily newsletter – you can subscribe to it here)

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Student and teacher of innovation - University of Queensland Business School - links to academic papers, twitter, and so on can be found here.

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Category: business models
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2 thoughts on “Hugh MacLeod Explains Innovation”

  1. “be the only one in the world that does what you do” and make sure there’s a market for it!

    This seems like the central tension to me. People can usually find an area in which to be distinctive. People can usually find a market. The trick seems to be matching those two things so that you’re not trying to enter a saturated market or a space where no feasible market exists.

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