MICHAEL McALEER:For many, innovation is associated with laboratories, circuit boards and white coats. That's correct as far as it goes: but it's so much more. It's yet another management buzzword, but it's also the application of imagination.
As Gary Hamel, renowned business thinker, outlines in this edition, it's as much about the way you manage that imagination, or as Dyson and Evian proved - and detailed in the design article inside - its about the way you package the goods to give competitive advantage.
It doesn't rest with the so-called R&D departments, however. As the success of the iPod demonstrates, it's not just about taking a new product to market and packaging it right.
It's as much to do with smart - and yes, innovative - lawyers at Apple, who were able to come up with a new music licensing system.
Lawyers can be innovative and so can accountants, who can develop new ways of funding projects, and HR managers who can introduce new incentive schemes to attract and retain staff.
There are plenty of success stories laid out on these pages, but that's the easy pill to swallow. The bitter one is that in the search for innovative ideas come the inevitable failures. That's where companies need to be smart innovators. It's as much about not fearing failures and having systems in place to spot them early and change direction, as it is about success.
Change is the engine for innovation and it's the only constant in the current economic climate. Competitors will catch up and imitate and smarter innovation also involves protecting those innovations from replication.
Our economy is set to undergo major changes in the coming years, many of them unnerving to organisations that are comfortable in their current format.
We need to be ready, as individuals, as companies and as a nation. Hopefully, this new magazine will go some small way to guiding, advising and preparing us all for these changes.
