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Innovation is commonly known and defined as the ability or skill to improve existing processes and to come up with a better way of doing things. On the other hand, the invention is understood to be an entirely new way of doing things.
Thus, whereas innovation is known to produce incremental changes to the processes and systems, the invention is understood to shake up the system.
Having said that, innovation in the Digital Age has indeed come a long way from the definitions provided above wherein it is not limited to marginal or factor improvements in productivity, but, also can lead to factor and Quantum jumps in productivity.
The reason for this is to do with the nature of technology and the rate of technological change that usually is the outcome of the combination of human ingenuity and the promise offered by technology.
For instance, while human ingenuity and human innovation has always been with us in terms of entirely new insights and observations, once technology entered the picture, the whole game changed as technology such as the ones that propelled the Industrial Revolution were able to transform the entire landscape of humanity due to their inherently efficient and innately transformative abilities.
Innovation in the Digital Age
Coming to Innovation in the Digital Age, once the gains of the Industrial Revolution peaked and industry and business shifted its focus from analog or machines to digital and software, the second game change happened wherein the exponential acceleration, and exponential change brought about due to new technologies and new software powered by chips and processors soon led to dramatic improvements in the way business and society operated.
To understand this better, think of a situation where 2 becomes 4 and 4 becomes 8 and then 16 and so on, wherein each jump or leap is no longer linear but exponential with the capacity to reach infinite and uncountable increases in the rate of change.
Thus, innovation in the Digital Age is no longer only about marginal or incremental change but, instead is as much about exponential change as it is about dramatic improvements in human productivity and efficiency.
Innovation in the Industrial and Digital Ages
Of course, this does not mean that innovation now is more revolutionary than in the times of the Industrial Revolution as some economists have come out with studies that show that the changes which happened during this time were more than the changes happening now.
To explain, the jumps in productivity due to the Industrial Revolution were more dramatic and more pronounced since it was a wholesale leap or jump into an entirely new paradigm. In contrast, the Digital Age is indeed revolutionary, but, the change is being built on top of the existing order of things that was first established by the Industrial Revolution.