Innovation: the word to hide the lack of substance. A term gains popularity because it resonates with the zeitgeist, reaches buzzword status, then suffers from overexposure and cooptation.
In formal economic terms, ‘innovation’ involves the diffusion of new things and practices. The term is completely agnostic about whether these things and practices are good. How much of this is tied back to the definition of progress?
- Proved to be useful: innovations
- Proved to be useful over 40 years: technology (lindy innovation)
Innovation as a form of maintenance?
Is there even a distinction of maintenance and innovation? Is maintenance just micro-innovation?
Maintenance is fixing parts of an existing system whereas innovation is wholistic and changing the whole system