Innovating at no costs

This post is dedicated to those, who still think that innovation is a costly affair:

“I agree with you” -- is what I could say and that would sum it up. But most of my friends know that I don’t really agree to it.

As I have pointed out in my this post (http://itcit.blogspot.com/2008/07/cheating-innovation.html) , there are two types of innovators. Since we know that type 1 innovation is costlier than type 2 innovation, most businesses should actually go for first kind of innovation (‘Creation’) only when the second type (‘Application’) is not available. And yes it is quite possible that all your efforts and money spent on type 1 innovation goes in vain due to changes in market condition or due to someone else creating and launching a similar or better product before you do. However, type 1 innovation can give you massive returns (if type 2 innovation is also applied effectively on the product obtained from type 1 innovation) much more than what type 2 can give you.

In that sense, I would say Innovation (type 1) is like the stock market --- high risk, high return. If you are not looking for high returns, you can still get decent returns (in fact, better returns in turbulent times) from bonds/ deposits i.e. type 2 innovation.