In today’s world, innovation is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity. According to Gita Johar, Meyer Feldberg Professor of Business and faculty director of Innovation and Marketing, “The ever-shrinking real differences between competitive products means that the only way to beat the market is to ensure that innovation is plugged into every aspect of the marketing mix: product, promotion, price and place.”
But how does one approach creative innovation in a way that yields substantive results? In the Innovation and Marketing program, Professor Johar and her expert team teach a method of innovation called Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT)®. “The SIT® method was born out of academia and has been implemented in the field for more than a dozen years,” she says. “It is a structured process for arriving at inventions on demand, whenever there is a need to arrive at creative ideas.”
Joining the words “structured,” “creative” and “on demand” seems paradoxical. But Professor Johar explains that even the most creative person benefits from having the proper tools when asked to develop a new idea. “People often forget that when you need to create mentally, you need mental tools,” which is where SIT® comes in.
Professor Johar continues, “Most people believe that creativity is characterized by suspended judgment, wild thinking. They emphasize that the creative process needs to be fun. However, creativity that is valuable to a business is hard work.” She notes that many companies are under the misconception that creativity is necessary only in the first stage of the innovation process, to generate ideas.
“Many innovation projects fail because the implementers and planners aren’t creative, and they haven’t been given the tools to come up with creative solutions for later-stage challenges,” she says. “Innovation isn’t something you do once in awhile. The real value,” Professor Johar concludes, “is if you can be creative at any time, on demand.”
Innovation and Marketing takes place on the Columbia University campus; 2009 date TBA. Click here to learn more and apply. You may click here to read more about the SIT® method.