I play softball in an old guy's league. People show up each day and it is someone's job to compose fair teams. This process takes a long time and we all wind up standing around waiting while late arrivals are hastily added in and the balance of the teams is re-adjusted. It doesn't really matter. The team that the guy who makes up the teams is on usually wins easily.

So I wrote a computer program to make up the teams fairly and swiftly. You should have heard the outcry against it. A computer? It can't deal with the intangibles (whatever they are.) They did try it, but despite the fact that the teams were fair that day it was never used again. Something about trusting people more than machines.

Innovation is more than just having a good idea. And, it is more than getting your idea into production (which can be quite tricky if you need capital -- no one hates innovation more than venture capitalists.) Innovation requires an attitude. You need to think you are right and everyone else is an idiot. Without that attitude you will never make your idea happen because everyone is going to hate whatever it is you propose.

One reason why this is the case is that our school system hates innovation more than any one person does and we are all products of that system. In school there are right answers and we need to memorize them. The winners (who, by the way often turn out to control the money and resources needed for innovation) did not get there by objecting to the system. They got there by memorizing the right answers better than anyone else.

People with original ideas need to have thick skins. The process of innovation is simple enough.

1. Get annoyed at how things are.
2. Come up with a solution.
3. Get resources to put your solution into production.
4. Fight with everyone who tries to kill your idea.

-Roger Schank, “How To Innovate” Read the full version here.