Technological concepts of innovation

The OECD defines Technological Innovation in the Oslo Manual (1995) as:

Technological product and process (TPP) innovations comprise implemented technologically new products and processes and significant technological improvements in products and processes. A TPP innovation has been implemented if it has been introduced on the market (product innovation) or used within a production process (process innovation).

TPP innovations involve a series of scientific, technological, organisational, financial and commercial activities. The TPP innovating firm is one that has implemented technologically new or significantly technologically improved products or processes during the period under review.

A 2005/6 MIT survey of innovation in technology found a number of characteristics common to innovators working in that field.

1) they are not troubled by the idea of failure,

2) they realise that failure can be learned from and that the 'failed' technology can later be re-used for other purposes,

3) they know innovation requires that one works in advanced areas where failure is a real possibility,

4) innovators are curious about what is happening in a myriad of disciplines, not only their own specialism,

5) innovators are open to third-party experiments with their products,

6) they recognise that a useful innovation must be "robust", flexible and adaptable,

7) innovators delight in spotting a need that we don't even know we harbor, and then fulfilling that need with a new innovation, and as such

8) innovators like to make products that are immediately useful to their first users.