By Rob Kinslow, Senior Strategist, Brand Communication

It seems no matter which industry we’re talking about, we hear the word “innovation.” A lot. Here at KHJ we suspect that the word has been overused to the point where it has become oxymoronic: to merely say you’re innovative isn’t innovative at all. To be innovative requires taking risks and pushing people (customers, prospects, employees) outside their comfort zones. If you’re saying you’re innovative, aren’t you simply saying what everyone else is saying?

In fact, at KHJ we’ve gone a bit further, declaring that innovation is out. It’s the first of four rules we call The New Rules of Medical Device Marketing, but the principles can apply to any industry. Check them out, and while you’re at it, plumb the depths of current thinking on what innovation really is (or should be) at The Innovation Genome Project elsewhere on this same Interweb.

A final thought comes from something my incredibly wise son, Jay, said at his coming-of-age ceremony when he was 13 going on Methuselah. At commencements and other such events, Jay said, you often hear quoted that poem by Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken.” “But if everyone’s taking the road not taken,” Jay pointed out, “it ceases to be … the road not taken. Doesn’t it?”

Hmm.