7 Sources Of Innovation By Peter Drucker

                                               
Myles Penniman
9/16/12

After reading the 7 sources of innovation I thought it was great advice for someone like me who aspires to run a business someday. Here are the 7 sources of innovation written by Peter Drucker. Every innovator and business should keep these in mind.

1. First off is The Unexpected. The Unexpected is exactly what it sounds like, you have to expect the Unexpected if you want to have a successful business. The unexpected could mean failure, success, surprised, ECT. You must be ready for anything. The whole market could change dramatically by peoples unexpected decisions. A good hypothetical example of this would be if the whole electron market was down really bad in the stock market for some random reason. If you are a electronic company like say Best Buy you must adjust.

2. Second is something called Incongruities. Incongruities is basically thinking differentely. Not only thinking differentely from your competitors, but also thinking differentely from society. What I mean by this is you must find a creative idea to sell, and you can only do this by thinking differenelty to discover a new invention or idea. When I think of thinking differentely Steve Jobs comes to mind and all of his inventions. A good example of this would be how Steve Jobs and apple created the Iphone it was one of a kind at the time, no one else combined both music and a cell phone in one. Manoj Bhargava                                                                                                                                             3. 

3.Third on the list is an idea called Process need. Process need is similar to Incongruities in that you must think differentely than the everyone else. If there is a glicht or something missing in society or in a business you must find a innovative way to fix it. For example the creator of 5 hour energy Manoj Bhargava noticed that more people were consumming caffinated drinks. And in turn more people had to wait in line at stores that supplied coffe. Manoj Bhargava was innovator in that he created something that you can drink right away and did not take a while to drink nor did you have to wait in line to get the drink.

4. Fourth is called Changes in Industry and Market Structures. This topic is related to the "Unexepected" if you are a business owner you must expect the unexpected in your indurstry or market. Other business's  from within or even from with out your market could change your market. To make things simple I will stick with the 5 hour energy example. When Manoj Bhargava created 5 hour energy the whole caffene market was changed, more and more people were now buying small less expensive energy drinks rather than coffe. This meant that Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and other coffe industries had to adjust because of change in the market.

5. Demographics is esstiannly the change in population. For example the change in amount of kids riding bikes, change in amount of men over 50, change in amount of African Americans in America, ECT. These changes in Demographics change the way innovators run their business. A hypothetical example of this would be if we annexed mexico then the hispianic population in the U.S. would rise. If spanish people consume a lot of coffe then the coffe market would change, and in turn it would also effect other markets for example the bagel market would be affected because if more people buy coffe more and more people might stop by to get a bagel as well.

6. Sixth on the list is Changes in Perception. Perception is the way people perceive something. In the business world the general public might perceive a industry a certain way that could be good or bad. Perception changes over time. For example 50 years ago people did not know the affects of tobacco. So now more and more people are staying away from cigarettes so there is less advertising.

7. Last but not least is New knowledge. New knowledge of technology both scientific and non scientific. Business owners must be in touch with todays technology to run their business. There are new discoveries all the time that could affect your business. For example if the U.S. discovered they have a bunch somewhere in the U.S.! Oil companies would start digging to get the oil.

To follow these 7 rules written by Peter Drucker takes discipline and commitment. Some innovators do not take the time to stop and think about their surrounds and how the market is changing around them. This was a great learning experience reading these 7 sources/rules and, I will be sure to keep these sources in my mind when I run my own business someday!
Below is a informative interview with the author himself Peter Drucker.