Innovation ≠ technology


You probably already know this. Perhaps your internal response to this will be, “Obviously.”

But it sort of hit me like a tonne of bricks when I heard my internet friend and globe-trotting change-strategist Cassandra Mok say on the Unstoppable Mindset podcast today:

“Innovation doesn’t have to mean high-tech.”

(A mild paraphrase from the ~28-minute mark.)

In that moment, I realized how thoroughly I’ve linked the two concepts (innovation and technology) in my mind. This came as a wake-up call.

You can innovate with your bare hands, with your mind.

As Cassandra went on to say, “Innovation is really about doing something new or improving something that exists.”

And while the norm when writing things like this is to take life situations and try to tie them to business-y thoughts, today I’ll do the opposite.

When my daughter, Alice, and I decided this Canada Day — for the first time in the ~13 years I’ve been living here — to not only walk down to the river’s edge but actually wade into it, enjoying the fast-flowing current on our legs, we were innovating.

At least as far as she and I were concerned.

This was a new way to think about the river I’d previously thought of as “out of bounds.” This was also a new way to think about celebrating the country we’re so lucky to live in, such as we do.

Innovatively,
James

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