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Tuesday Buzz: The Roots of Innovative Ideas

For a notion to be truly original, there has to be a chance it won't even work, one association CEO says. Also: the role political polarization plays in the news we read.

Ernie Smith

October 21, 2014

Heads up: this content is over 5 years old, so some information may be out of date.

National Fluid Power Association CEO Eric Lanke was knee-deep in innovative ideas over the weekend, reviewing proposals for the ASAE Foundation’s Innovation Grants Program  (opens in a new tab). Thus, he got a chance to peer into smart concepts from the association world.

In his blog post, Lanke explains that an idea isn’t innovative unless it brings something entirely different into the organization—in other words, it is “disruptive.” A key aspect of this requirement is the idea has to come with a degree of risk  (opens in a new tab)—risk that the plan might not work at all, especially with the team you currently have.

“When you say the truly innovative idea out loud for the first time, people don’t nod their heads and write it down on their to-do lists,” he observes. “Everyone’s hearts beat faster and they find themselves torn between a desire to support the potential of what has just been described and a not-unrealistic fear that they are not up to task of providing what the potential may demand of them. It’s not something that we just work into our procedures. Indeed, it is something that we may need to abandon some of our procedures in order to achieve.”

What’s your take on innovation? And going by Lanke’s standards, what’s the most innovative thing you’ve ever done?

Graphic of the Day

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Perhaps this is obvious. It only makes sense, right? But nonetheless, Pew Research Center’s newest study, “Political Polarization and Media Habits,” highlights the differences between liberals and conservatives in terms of what media sources they rely on to inform themselves about government and politics. It also examines the ways in which people discuss politics with friends and family members.

A key point of the study is that the more polarized people are, the more engaged they are: “Yet as our major report on political polarization found, those at both the left and right ends of the spectrum, who together comprise about 20% of the public overall, have a greater impact on the political process than do those with more mixed ideological views,” the study’s authors state. This engagement takes the form of activities such as voting and donating to political parties.

And those who are politically far right or far left have distinct information streams from those who have more middle-of-the-road views.

Read the full report over this way  (opens in a new tab).