How Can We Measure Innovation?

Recently the Freakonomics blog posted an interesting article: How Can We Measure Innovation?

They asked six "thinkers" in this area: How can a company measure innovation?

A summary of their responses is below:

• Seth Godin: "if we embrace the process, not the event, we win."
• John Seely Brown: innovation needs to be broken down into three different types so that it can be analysed - incremental, architectural, and distruptive.
• Ashish Arora: "I know it when I see it".
• Daphne Kwon and Bill Hildebolt: "Embracing failure … brings you dangerously close to failure’s more deadly cousin, flailing.".
• Mark Turrell: Targets are essential to help drive behavior, and target setting is a critical task for senior management. The absence of targets leads to uncertainty and an inconsistent application of any improvement activities.