Here is a great passage about what real innovation should look like, or more exactly: what we should call, search for and reward, as real innovation, instead of the next gadget.
(emphasis mine)
“If anything, at this phase in history, ideas matter more - way more - than execution. Should we believe in the silly myth that “ideas don’t matter! Only execution does!”, then not only do we leave ourselves at the mercy of man-child macho-men like [insert tech CEO] - worse, we flunk the great test of this age in history.”
“Everything’s broken, friends. What we really needs are ideas for rebuilding the great broken systems that lie in ruins around us. Healthcare systems, educational systems, financial systems, social systems, environmental systems, energy systems.”
“Ideas of a special kind are what is needed to reinvent them. Big I Ideas. Idea have never mattered more - in fact, today, they matter so much, that the challenge is having the biggest, trust, and most transformative ones that we can. Huge ones. World-shaking ones. Life-changing ones. Let me explain what I mean.”
Source, to read in full: “The Difference Between Big Ideas and Little Ideas”, by Umair Haque
Suggested complementary reading: (some posts of mine that, in my humble opinion, prove Haque’s great points)