What is the difference between inventor and innovator

But all of these companies have also created a corporate culture that recognizes the value and the opportunity of cerebration and group-think. They have created a system that operates both as a business, and as an idea factory. We learned that the only way for businesses to consistently succeed today is to attract smart creative employees and create an environment where they can thrive at scale. Transforming a business from invention to innovation might not be a huge change, an enormous investment, or a massive restructuring.

It could be as simple as adding some simple social concepts and some new ways of managing and measuring success into the existing structure.

Think back in your career to when you were an eager young University graduate with dreams and ideas. How valuable would it have been to work alongside Jobs, Schmidt, Zuckerberg, Joy, Brin, Bezos, or one of the hundreds of other visionaries that we respect today? We all have the opportunity now, to take our experience and knowledge and invest that in the organization. We can take a break from our traditional leadership roles of meetings and schedules and take the time to step back, and give back, and be the leader that supports the innovation lying dormant within our own businesses.

Bill Walker is an IT guy, globalization driver, door opener, and super-dad traveling the globe to solve the sticky problems. Skip Article Header. Skip to: Start of Article. Originally posted by:. Bill Walker. View original post. Skip Social. Skip to: Latest News. Entrepreneurs will need to be able to adapt to changes in the market. While inventors and innovators usually like to be in an autonomous environment, entrepreneurs actually love collaboration and will typically look for advice and input from more successful entrepreneurs.

In almost all cases, entrepreneurs are leaders. Each of these entrepreneurs created businesses that filled a gap in the market and effectively answered the needs of customers even before the customers knew what they wanted. Bezos was able to create an online store in the early days of the internet.

Through an effective business plan and fantastic marketing techniques, Amazon became the largest online store on the internet. If you want to become an entrepreneur, you should look into creating a business that you are passionate about, which also means that you'll need to eventually develop a business plan. An innovator is a person who can create new ideas, methods, or products.

These individuals might also develop new iterations on products that have already been created. While the product or service will have already been invented, an innovator will be able to improve or make some kind of significant contribution to the invention. An example of an innovation is the development of the laptop computer. Even though the computer had already been invented, the innovation of the computer allowed it to be transformed into a portable device that could be carried around.

If you believe that you can improve on a product that's already on the market and make it more appealing to prospective customers, you would classify as an innovator. There are many characteristics that an innovator will need to be successful. The mark of a great innovator is being able to anticipate a need that the market is about to have. Innovations are typically created by taking advantage of emerging technologies and capturing trends at the moment they start.

Innovators are highly productive individuals who are passionate, are willing to take risks, and want to push the envelope. Two examples of successful innovators are Steve Jobs and Sergey Brin.

While Steve Jobs created Apple, it's important to understand that not all of his innovations panned out.

However, the ones that did went on to be among the most popular products in the world. As for Sergey Brin, he is the mind behind such innovations as Google Glass and Google's self-driving car.

These innovations are helping to push technology forward. If you want to become an innovator, it's important that you regularly set challenges that are difficult to meet. Innovators will typically partner with entrepreneurs to deliver their products.

While there are distinct differences between inventors, entrepreneurs, and innovators, the three roles are actually intertwined and related to one another. While entrepreneurs can have some characteristics of inventors and innovators within them, an entrepreneur is typically more focused on the business side of things than innovators or inventors.

In many situations, the products or services that are developed by inventors or innovators will be positioned on the market by entrepreneurs. Even though Steve Jobs was a well known innovator who was instrumental for the creation and success of Apple, other entrepreneurs were needed to steer the business side of things in the right direction. While entrepreneurs can help with the creation of products and services, their primary goal is to make sure that whatever product is made can be successfully placed on the market.

Though these three roles are somewhat different from one another, they do have several characteristics in common. For instance, inventors, entrepreneurs, and innovators must always be self-motivated, passionate, and creative. Whether you're an entrepreneur who's attempting to create a successful startup or an inventor who is trying to convert an idea into a product, you won't be able to reach your goals if you don't have the passion and perseverance to get past the hurdles that will invariably occur.

If you're trying to determine which of these roles you would fall under, you simply need to spend some time thinking about what you like to do. Take for example the telegraph, one of the great innovations of the nineteenth century.

The first crude telegraph was invented in Bavaria in , but Samuel Morse, who also created Morse Code, was the first person to build a commercially successful telegraph communication system. With its high speed, this innovation revolutionised the face of communication. If an invention lacks real-life value for the user, it will be overtaken by an innovation that manages to satisfy a need. Dyson noticed that a traditional vacuum cleaner loses suction as the bag fills up, and set about developing a more efficient machine.

During a visit to a local sawmill, Dyson observed how sawdust was removed from the air by large industrial cyclones, identifying that the technology could be applied to a vacuum cleaner; separating dust by cyclonic action and spinning it out of the airstream, thus eliminating the need for a bag and filter. They want to figure out how to do something in a novel way, working within the constraints of what is possible through science. Innovators, meanwhile, take an invention and use it to create a vision of a process or product that will be so useful to its users they will happily pay for it.

They ask: what needs to be done to improve a product? What is the missing piece of the puzzle that will make this product an invaluable addition to what is already available?