“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
Steve Jobs
“If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.”
Woody Allen
“I believe in being an innovator.”
Walt Disney
“Every day were saying, ‘How can we keep this customer happy?’ How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don’t, somebody else will.”
Bill Gates
It does not escape me all these quotes are by men. Why do you think that is? Are you an innovator? Tell us!
Surely we can find some girls with this.
OK, oh yeah, I’ll look around )
Ok, here is a quote by an extremely innovative woman:
“We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all civil and political rights that belong to the citizens of the United States be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.”
– Susan B. Anthony, 19th- & early 20th-century leader of the Women’s Movement
And my opinion as to why most of these quotes are by men? Well, to quote another feminist, Gloria Steinem:
“When I speak at college campuses, I am still never asked by a man how he can combine family and a career”.
Well, I think it’s just because women don’t call it “innovation” but “creation”, “growth” or other words taken from the nature rather than from technology. For men being “creative” is not a job 🙂
Women have had the bar set lower, haven’t they? When they do anything innovative, it isn’t innovation… it’s rebellion.
It’s the only explanation I could come up with.
While we’re on work environment inequality… did you know that female employees nowadays outnumber male employees?
(Note: This is not a man saying ‘damn those wily females’; this is a man saying ‘interesting fact’)
yeah, well, it’s hard to feel safe stretching in a relatively soulless atmosphere imo (ok, maybe i’m more bitter with academia than i realize.)
uhm. women tend to function more collaboratively and are more likely to want to share the acclaim for innovation with others. our brains are wired a bit different (this is, of course, a broad generalization, but men tend to be more hierarchial than women, which makes it easier for the some to stand out.)
and then there’s women like this lady:
and her:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner
i think the records haven’t been kept very well, mostly. women are more willing to not fight to keep the credit for their work… or get “distracted” by the human needs of the people around them
Rob, I don’t see any lower or higher bars from here. Innovation is the introduction of something new, a new idea, method or device. Creation is the act of bringing the world into ordered existence, as well as the act of making, inventing or producing. So the concepts are pretty similar, though creation is more fundamental. Men and women are both equally involved in the process, no matter if they have a more technical or a more biological approach, and no matter if they understand each other or not.
Pardon, I should say “we” not “they” – so no matter if we understand each other or not 🙂
NOTE: Innovation should only be lauded if it is undertaken with the goal of societal/technological/psychological, and not the intent to harm or dominate.
Its like this one university lecture I attended once where these people, most of them men, were discussing the need for better rhetorical skills, in order to produce better orators, politicians, “thinkers”,etc.
I just sat there thinking: What good are all your brains if there is no empathy???
Same goes for innovation.
My two cents…
Oops, meant to say:
Innovation should only be lauded if it is undertaken with the goal of societal/technological/psychological betterment, and not the intent to harm or dominate.
For instance, I think that science and technology could be used to greatly improve our lives, environment and health, but oftentimes, it seems to be used to do the opposite.
I can’t believe you put Bill Gates on the same innovation page as Steve Jobs. They couldn’t be more different. Gates has never been known for innovation. Gates made his billions copying other peoples’ work, particularly Steve Jobs’ work.
And Charles, I cant believe you come here every day and express your displeasure with me. Is there not a better blog out there, one that might meet your standards?
Bill Gates is too known for innovation… are you kidding me? And astrology wise? Uranus conjunct ascendant.. square his sun, and trine his moon. Additionally, when Microsoft was founded in April 1975, Uranus was transiting Scorpio, crossing over his Sun in Scorpio ( 5 deg ) … He’s quite the Uranian Scorpio, imho.
Elsa, you completely misunderstand, this sort of comment is not intended as a personal insult. They are merely an attempt to engage with the topic. You know, not everyone agrees with everything. And I wouldn’t be here if the topics were not worth engaging with. But if you don’t want me around, or if you’re incapable of accepting my remarks in the spirit they were intended, just tell me and I’ll go away.
Now Jo, just to clarify things.. Bill Gates was only personally involved in ONE project, EVER. He wrote part of Microsoft Basic, back around 1975, it was Microsoft’s first product. MSBasic was a copy of Dartmouth Basic, which had been in use for several years. And Gates didn’t even write much of it, he got bored and subcontracted most of the work to other programmers.
So other than that, can you tell me one single thing that was an invention, or innovative, that Bill Gates has done?
Charles, my perception is exactly as I noted. I feel as if you come over to my house every day to ask me why I’ve not cleaned the cobwebs in the corner, or why the dishes aren’t put away or why I chose such a ghastly color.
I feel it’s rude, it is irritating, it is at times insulting and if you can’t manage to stop, I am sure we will fall out permanently and soon.
Well, Elsa, I’ve been known to rub people the wrong way without realizing it. If I have done this, it was unintentional, and I apologize. But in my own defense, I think you’re focusing on the few comments I made that you object to, overlooking all the positive contributions. And as you know, I’m going through a really tough time so please cut me some slack. Now I feel like you’re kicking me when I’m down.
Charles, I don’t feel I am kicking you. I am attempting (and have been attempting) to show you some respect and asking you to return the favor.
As for not acknowledging or appreciating you, this is just not the case. I welcomed you when you showed up here, I complimented you several times, but now the pot shots are coming in steady and I am no longer want to ignore of transcend them.
The fact is – THIS IS MY JOB. It is demanding and the survival of this blog which so many value, depends on my ability to stay focused. This means when someone comes along (as someone always does) who irritates or distracts me, I have no choice but to do something about it and so I confronted you.
Now we are square (I hope). I am going to go back because honestly, these conversations take time, they drain me, they are tiresome, they take energy and I would rather be doing something creative.
As for my sensitivity I do not deny it but I am also not going to run to therapy over it. I have written 15,000 posts on astrology and built a terrific community here so based on that I think I’m entitled to my humanness. It’s very simple:
Next you want to tell me that my clothes clash or how I should have combed my hair – don’t… and you can be sure I will return the favor.
Charles- we can agree to disagree here. I’m not aware of the ins and outs of how he got started down to the nitty gritty details, but he seems to have used the original BASIC as a ground to build upon, rather than simply “stealing”. Meaning, he co-wrote a BASIC interpreter for the original BASIC platform ( which was distributed freely to use ) I’m afraid I can’t take you on your word that he essentially copied something else and thus doesn’t deserve credit for it. He took an idea and ran with it, and expanded upon it. There doesn’t seem to be much debate over his having essentially “copied” something.. ( and reading wikipedia, he might have used it as a base, but it says,”Early BASIC only supported single letter and digit names, but Microsoft BASIC supported long variable names. The runtime symbol table, however, used a linear search, so that a program which used many distinct variables would run much slower than a program which used a single array for all its variables.” )
I consider taking an idea, expanding upon it and making it accessible to a great array of people ( also making it more efficient ) rather quite innovative. After all, Edison didn’t invent the first electric lightbulb, but did produce the “world’s first commercially practical incandescent light”.. does that make him any less innovative? In your opinion, possibly… in my opinion, no.
True innovation is very simple and elegant in my opinion. Using one very good part where two used to be.
‘Innovation’ is overused. The banking establishment is where I hear it most often lately. Banking is pretty easy, please don’t innovate me or my country out of any more money.
I think that true innovation is great, but the word has been taken hostage.
True innovation is very difficult, and almost never able to be quantified, in my opinion.
The contradiction between business and innovation is huge. Tesla was far more innovative than Edison, but Edison was better at filling out patent applications.
charles, that eyeball is very irritating. I am sure you know this.
Now Elsa, the only overtly critical comment I can recall making is that I said that the links in grey were hard to read on a grey background. I merely noted this thinking that The Mechanic could fix this and thus the blog would be more user-friendly. I didn’t intend this as a condemnation of your design. I contributed it hoping that it would help in the operation of your blog. And I wouldn’t bother doing that if I didn’t care about your blog.
And this is the crux of the online condition. Criticism does not equal condemnation. Criticism can be a positive thing, it points out our blind spots, as you are doing now with me. But online, without the personal contact like a face to face conversation, it is easy to mistake critiques as being condemnations and personal attacks.
Just remember, we are ALL entitled to our humanness too. Perhaps you can accept me for what I am. I don’t care about your clothes or hair (well, I did compliment you when you thought your hair was a mess). We are all capable of making up enough distractions all on our own. If my comments feed into yours occasionally, I can’t possibly know that.
Anyway, enough said, and I hope this clears the air. If you object to something I say, please feel free to comment, but don’t take it personally when it wasn’t intended that way.
I wasn’t aware that the eyeball was irritating anyone, I will remove it.
Charles, thanks for removing the eyeball. I also mentioned it in the “triangle” comments….