What Does Innovation Mean to You?

[sarah_manning]

We recently posed the question, What does innovation mean to you? and received a bevy of responses. What we discovered is that innovation means something unique to each one of you — and whether you appreciate the simplicity of the spork or the complexity of "an old wooden ship used during the Civil War era", one commonality is that an innovative idea or product affects change and forward movement in one way or another. Read on for your peers' interpretations.
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Innovation is change with benefits. If something new or different doesn't deliver benefit to someone, it's just change for change's sake — and who's got budget for that?
-Michael Dortch, ServiceNow
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Innovation is so often associated with stepwise or orthogonal departures from existing solutions. To me, however, innovation is much more the result of conscious and persistent action - often in the face of failed trials - to better solve known problems and address unfulfilled needs.
-Walker White, BDNA, a Gold Sponsor of Knowledge13
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Innovation means putting the power of modern technology in people's hands. It enhances knowledge and empowers people. It is the creation of technologies that transform the way we work, that give us the ability to achieve optimal results while delivering greater value. It is the opportunity to think more creatively; to open our minds to new ideas.
-Diana Espinoza, University of Miami
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Innovation is the child of creativity and invention. To me, innovation is bringing something to the table that adds value and makes our lives easier. When I hear the word 'Innovation' our Innovations Team comes to mind. This team is made up of the people at Fruition who are consistently creating different solutions on the ServiceNow Service Automation Platform to make IT easier. The results they come up with continue to impress me. I look forward to showcasing some of these at the Knowledge Conference in our FruBooth — be sure to stop by!
-Christina Sinopoli, Fruition Partners, a Platinum Sponsor of Knowledge13
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To me it means stretching beyond the boundaries of comfort or doing only what's expected — 'think' big, 'think' a little crazy and then 'do' what may seem unlikely or impossible.
-Angela Burk, ServiceNow
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Innovation encompasses a broad scope, applying to anything that has the potential to change the way we work and live, and ServiceNow represents a specific example of innovative technology. Today, people and technology are evolving alongside each other and ServiceNow offers revolutionary solutions to help organizations bridge the gap between the two. ServiceNow represents innovation by dramatically changing the way businesses manage IT by providing unprecedented insight into the IT infrastructure, incidents and more. The ability to have a clearer picture of IT services on a platform that allows for growth and enhancements represents a major leap forward for businesses and has the potential to significantly improve and simplify IT service management. By offering advancements that help to propel businesses forward, ServiceNow is revolutionizing the way we work and interact with IT, making it a prime example of innovation.
- Philip Sidebottom, Cloud Sherpas, a Platinum Sponsor of Knowledge13
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To borrow from Luke Williams book "Disrupt," innovation is all about coming up with a disruptive hypothesis that consumers want.
-Craig Uhlenkott, via Facebook
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Innovation is the evolutionary process of continuously increasing customer value.
-Raphael Holdermann, Matrix42, a Gold Sponsor of Knowledge13
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Arthur C. Clarke's third "law" states that, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." At ServiceNow, our job is to innovate for our customers and make using the Enterprise IT Cloud magical. That innovation is driven by the cloud platform and infrastructure teams' three core values:

1) Build the Service You Want to Use Everyday
2) Surprise and Empower our Customers
3) ServiceNow First

We innovate to build what we want to use everyday — when we see a service that we want we build it and operate it efficiently.
We innovate to make the Enterprise IT Cloud magical — that magic can surprise and empower our IT Heroes.
We innovate by working together and always making ServiceNow, both our customers and employees, our first priority.
-Allan Leinwand, ServiceNow
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Innovation means both evolving our Business of Today and building our Business of Tomorrow. It means growth and relevance. Innovation is not just a nice-to-have concept at KPMG--it's an imperative. Innovation is critical to our firm's future and is a key priority for any organization operating in an evolving marketplace. Improving what we are doing includes continually capturing innovation from client engagements, and making sure we realize new values from those experiences. It also means rethinking our service delivery models to be more efficient.
- Leslie Schiffer, KPMG, a Premier Sponsor of Knowledge13
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Creating elegant solutions to complex problems. Creating a great customer experience. Streamlining complex processes. Automate, automate, automate! And, when you're done with that, find more to automate.
- Brian Hollandsworth, ServiceNow
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A product or service is innovative as long as it continues to evolve and not remain aligned to just the needs of yesterday; new features and functionality MUST add value to support the business to be truly innovative. Our customers don't buy our solution simply because of its "coolness factor" nor because it comes highly recommended by peers in the industry. At the end of the day, our product innovation must show value to the business and prove a lower cost of ownership.
-Mike Sell, Bomgar, a Gold Sponsor of Knowledge13
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