Whew. That was a close call. For a few minutes there, I thought that the house had also eaten James Webb Young's A Technique for Producing Ideas. (Mind you, I can't find the Penguin History of Canada when I need it, so the house still has some 'splainin' to do. But that's another story.)
I have a librarian friend who--unsurprisingly--organises her home bookshelves according to Library of Congress numbering. I'm not so professional m'self, but even so, my History shelves are parsed according to a system...albeit one which likely makes no sense to anyone else. And the delineation between "literature" vs. mere "fiction" admittedly tends to factor in book size to an inordinate degree.
But given my usual categorisation instincts, the fact that I didn't immediately think to look for Young's book in the "software development" neighbourhood is disgraceful, truth be told. Particularly as that's also where Strunk & White and a dot-com-vintage Chicago Manual of Style live. (Anyone who thinks that being a software developer starts and ends at the bytes is--in Web 2.0 parlance--"doin it rong." So sayeth my bookshelf: Your argument is invalid.)
A Technique for Producing Ideas is a slim slip of a book--almost a pamphlet on steroids, really. It dates from the advertising world of the 1940s--notably before "the tee-vee" became the most valued fixture in America's living room. But even a grab-your-belt-and-fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants autodidact like Don Draper would have known it chapter-and-verse. And it's no less relevant today, when all we First World pixel-pushing proles (allegedly) need to do to hose the backwash of globalisation off our blue suede shoes is "innovate." (This is where I'd love to link to Rory Blyth's brilliant, scathing "Innovidiots" blog-post, but it looks like it's offline indefinitely.)
Absent Mr. Blyth's take on the subject, I think our biggest problem with the term "innovation" is its intimidating suggestion of the blank page. And I don't think I'm making a straw-man argument when I say that, popularly, innovation is too often conflated with creating something ex nihilo. Intellectually, you can look at the portfolio of the most valuable consumer products company on the planet (Apple) : Graphical user interfaces, MP3 players, smartphones, and tablet computers--and know that Woz/Jobs didn't invent a single one of them.
That insight doesn't necessarily help when you're staring into a looming abyss of enforced downtime--yay, holidays. It helps even less to remember that Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the HTTP protocol on Christmas Day. No pressure there... [grumble]
So to bring things down to the scale of a manageable metaphor, you mainly just need to decide whether you're ultimately the waffle-iron or the crock pot when it comes to making something.
Waffles have the advantage of being very specific--anyone who's been by the grocery story freezer case should have the basic idea down. But the parameters, to a certain extent, are relatively fixed: Starch--typically flour--for body, eggs for structure, some sort of leavening (typically baking soda/powder or yeast) for loft, and milk to make the batter pourable. Too much of one thing and you could have a weird looking hockey-puck or (literally) a hot mess. Moreover, modern electric/electronic waffle irons typically impose limits on temperature.
Within those basic parameters, however, you can make some amazing waffles. (In my world, read "Dennis" for "you.") Making a "sponge" of yeast-leavened batter the night before, and only adding the eggs in the morning, for instance, makes for a revelation in texture. Likewise, eggs can be split into yolks for the main batter, while the whites are frothed and gently folded in afterwards. A touch of vanilla or almond extract? Yes, please. Topped with lingonberry syrup (because you live close enough to Newfoundland/Labrador that it's a staple in Maritime grocery stores)? Bring it.
Waffles are incremental innovation in a nutshell. Evolution, y'understand.
In contrast, there's the crock pot. True, milk and/or eggs probably won't be staples of most recipes. But apart from those, you have a lot of latitude...assuming you respect the laws of Physics. A crock pot will happily simmer organic vegetarian vegetable soup all day. A crock pot will just as happily caramelise cocktail weinies and bottled BBQ sauce into artery-clogging, potentially carcinogenic ambrosia. A crock pot doesn't judge.
In tonight's metaphor, that latitude is what pushes the crock-pot toward the "revolution" end of the invention spectrum.
I'm not particularly partial to either--in fact, I'm delighted when an idea that I consider commoditised is successfully re-invented/re-imagined. LCD monitors, LED light bulbs, thermostats, etc.
But whether you ultimately choose to make waffles or some slow-cooked goodness, the end-goal is the same. Sure, maybe the first few attempts you'll end up feeding to the dog or what-have-you. But ultimately, you have to muster the confidence to serve it to company. Because just as there is no art without an audience, there is no invention without an end-user.
