The sad part about innovation…. Can we really be innovative without being creative?

A few days ago I read an article from Invention to Innovation by Mohamed A El-Erian, the former CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO. The article made me think more about Invention, Innovation and Creativity.

One of my favorite classic movies of all times is Modern Times, starring Charlie Chaplin. It is the kind of movie I can watch again and again and it will always make my day. One of my favorite parts is the “invention” presented in the beginning of the movie. This scene attracts me because of two main reasons:

1- The brilliantly implied criticism about the automation of industry;
2- The creative and simple ways to make us laugh like kids;

The objective of this post is to debate a little bit about item number 2, described above; to open a dialogue regarding innovation in our day with the Millennials and the previous generations who I refer to as “classic”.

A crucial part of my job is to identify, evaluate and convince student candidates in order to recruit the best talent from top universities. I also seek to strike a balance between company objectives and new hire expectations. I also have to determine how these newly hired employees will work together with “classic professionals” and how to become a cohesive team.

The hiring process requires a lot of time and effort from all of the different teams within the company. In my humble opinion, this process is the most important for any company’s sustainability. A few months ago, I lead one of these recruitment process events at two top universities in the Boston area. One of the key phases of this process was the group dynamic. Usually, we request that students from 2 or 3 different groups create a product where the only rule is to deliver a new idea (i.e., product or service) in 30 minutes. The students always deliver great ideas through their presentations that become integrated with my candidate evaluation process.


Many of their final ideas are invariably IT related: applications, websites or platforms, even though they come from diverse backgrounds including business, finance and IT. I’m surprised that they do not create simple ideas that improve our lives. I’m not looking for ideas to put in a Sky Mall magazine, but all the ideas now are only IT related. Is there only IT focused innovation and creativity?


Today, IT is part of our reality and like David Kirkpatrick from Forbes said; “Now Every Company Is A Software Company”. We embrace IT in order to take advantage of the shortcuts that IT provides to innovate and to expand the horizon IT has created in the last years.

I miss the simple and brilliant ideas that came together with creativity, like the creation of Velcro for example, that was created from the insight of the Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral, who got the idea when a plant got stuck in his pants. Although he was an engineer and applied science and IT to invent velcro, the creativity was right there too.

Ultimately, I’m happy about this culture of innovation and entrepreneurship that surrounds us on a daily basis, but in my view, innovation mixed with creativity is better. Yes to be simple, creative and innovative may not be easy,but that is because we are in Modern Times, with Modern ITideas.