If You Have To Call Yourself Innovative, You're Probably Not

It happens all the time. 

A word reaches a tipping point in the collective vocabulary, and suddenly everyone's saying it. It's the definition of "buzzword", a term that's doomed to dilution.

Remember when "awesome" meant "breathtaking," "extremely impressive," or "awe-inspiring"? I do. I also now hear it 100x a day as filler and acknowledgement.

"I'm gonna work on some email."

"Awesome."

No, actually. My breath is still in my lungs. My heart rate is hovering at... yep, normal.

We accept our dictionary loss without thinking much about it. Life moves on. As a superlative, awesome is done for. Society adapts. If you need to convey the original meaning, you just have to find an even betterword, or replace the buzzword with its definition.

"SpaceX just launched a rocket into space, then landed the rocket on its feet."

"Great Caesar's ghost!"

(Or something like that.)

Definitions are not cheapened merely because of a word's popularity. But a word's popularity makes it more likely to be co-opted by those who either don't truly understand the word or want to sound cool. In other words, great business terms are easily ruined by marketers.

This is happening right now with the word, "innovation."

"Innovation" has been co-opted just like "synergy" and "dynamic" and a hundred other terms. These folks conflate "innovate", which means "to re-imagine" and "re-create," with simply the word, "change."

Every company wants to be innovative. Of course. We all want to be pack leaders, have everyone else ripping off our buzzwords (which, side note, happened recently when a competitor changed their marketing copy to mimic ours exactly—imitation is flattery!). And in the sea of products we may want to buy and companies we may want to do business with, how do we cut through the BS and know who really is pushing the future's boundaries and not following behind?

Whatever your definition of the term, here's my barometer for how to spot the innovators:they're not the ones calling themselves innovative.

Steve Jobs didn't have to say it. He just had to hold up an iPhone.

If you go around telling people you're humble, the opposite is true. "Humble" is a descriptor that's bestowed not seized. The same is true with "innovation."

The best marketing, in other words, is a great product. Innovative companies first re-create and re-imagine and disrupt, and then let others pile on the adjectives. Not the other way around.

Someone from a major media & management recently told that they had just launched an "innovation task force," to help them seize the future. She said that the fact that they need a group with the name "innovation" means it's not going to work.

I tend to agree.