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Innovation is an awful word because it means different things to different people.

Doesn't it just.

I approached someone in charge of innovation for a part of the UK's National Health Service. I offered some software (at no cost to them until they were content it met a need) based on a project I'd worked on in a different part of the public sector where the same idea had been successful. I was turned away, not because it wasn't actually innovative, but because to the NHS innovation meant funding deployment of commercially successful, mature software with existing customers and I didn't own the software from the previous project so I'd written a new (and improved) version.

It still puzzles me. I occasionally wonder how much time he must spend turning away people who have innovation ideas wondering why companies with mature products aren't calling his innovation department.




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