That's a working definition I've been playing with and I'd like more input on how it can be refined. Here's what's underneath it:

Ingenuity is applied imagination; there's a meaningful amount of creativity and originality combined with resourcefulness against a given challenge. It's adjacent to, and carries more significant impact than mere invention. Ingenuity is also more than modernization and meeting competitive standards; that's just treading water. Without this sort of novelty, there's no differentiation above alternatives.

Scaled reinforces the idea that it's not just an idea, proof-of-concept, or pilot — it's in the wild. While those are often necessary components — especially in large organizations — they aren't innovation in and of themselves. That said, "scaled" doesn't necessarily mean massive, but adopted at appropriate levels; Spotify's definition of scale is probably different than yours. More subtly, scale suggests that the concept has generated enough value in one way or another to continue.

Ingenuity without scale is akin to solutions looking for problems; scale without ingenuity is a lower-leverage investment.

Sure, the world probably didn't need yet another flag-in-the-ground thinkpiece on innovation, but I did. Innovation has a bad rap in part because of how it's been diluted by a focus on ideas that are too clever and/or too disconnected from the territory they've promised to help us navigate.

And yet, real innovation generates progress beyond incremental steps. Without differentiated, practical, and adopted solutions to real challenges, teams and organizations will struggle to stay in the game — let alone get ahead.

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Cover photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash