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Recombination
The process of innovation
Innovation is recombination.1 It is the process through which existing ideas, resources and capabilities are recombined in new ways. When Isaac Newton, founder of classical mechanics, said, ‘If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants’, he was reiterating an important principle of innovation – that it is cumulative. When Albert Einstein said ‘combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought’ he was articulating another – that innovation is inherently re-combinatorial: the mixing of existing ideas to produce something new. This chapter is about innovation, focusing on its central process – recombination. To present a rounded perspective, we have not ...
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