Innovation’s Missing Link Is Us*
*Some Assembly Required
Disruptive technologies and future-of-work strategies dominate the business minds of leaders today. Corporations invest heavily in technology as a driver of innovation. However, a growing recognition has emerged: technology alone isn’t sufficient for creating meaningful innovation and sustainable growth. To thrive, organizations need to embrace the human side of emotional creativity—the drivers of wonder, trust, freedom, and joy. These emotional dimensions shape how effectively technology integrates into our lives and how it drives progress.
At the core of any innovative endeavor lies a distinction between creativity and innovation, especially within teams. The consensus is nuanced but can be loosely summarized:
Creativity is ideation—the generation of new ideas or solutions within a team. It’s a phase often described as “cognitive creativity,” where divergent thinking, brainstorming, and open exploration lead to novel concepts. Creativity demands a willingness to entertain diverse perspectives and challenge existing paradigms.
Innovation, on the other hand, is implementation. It is “social creativity,” the phase where those new ideas are brought into reality. It involves strategic decision-making, action planning, and organizational support to realize creative visions. Leadership, team climate, and resource allocation are vital in this context. Innovation is about converting potential into progress— giving tangible shape to what once existed only in the imagination.
While cognitive creativity drives ideation and social creativity drives implementation, an often-overlooked bridge activates and connects both—“emotional creativity.” This is where Wondervation™ comes into play.
Wondervation Bridge
Wonder is at the core of every innovative, future-focused team. It is our “discovery emotion” and the enabler of our collective imagination, used to find creative futures beyond what the sum of our memories alone might allow us to see as possible.
Wonder, a spectrum from awe to curiosity, is a cultural technology that helps teams navigate uncertainty and unlock new possibilities. It gives your innovation team creative foresight— or the capabilities required to ask and answer three bold questions:
WHERE Do We Take Action?
HOW Do We Know Our Actions Are Wise?
WHAT Do We Need to Stay Resilient and Curious When the Unexpected Happens?
Wonder serves as a team’s North Star, guiding exploration and enabling the strategic and creative foresight that fuels breakthrough thinking and action. But Wonder doesn’t stand alone; it’s supported by three essential pillars that make teams' emotional creativity actionable: Trust, Freedom, and Joy.
Trust: WHERE Do We Take Action?
Trust serves as the map for your expedition. Trust is a spectrum from hope to belonging that empowers teams to define and choose bold, transformative arenas. Trust builds the confidence to take calculated risks, knowing that the path forward is grounded in shared goals and a sense of belonging.
Freedom: HOW Do We Know Our Actions Are Wise?
Freedom is the path that guides your team's navigation of obstacles and challenges. It is a spectrum running from compassion to courage. Freedom builds a shared notion of creative identity while allowing the team to collectively push the envelope of what’s possible.
Joy: WHAT Do We Need to Stay Resilient and Curious When the Unexpected Happens?
Joy, a spectrum from purpose to pleasure, is the fuel that keeps a team energized and adaptable. When the unexpected happens, joy ensures resilience. It’s a driving force for keeping teams motivated despite adversity, creating an environment where creativity and innovation can thrive.
No One Succeeds Alone
While any of us can engage in creativity and innovation on a personal level, the truth is that in business, no one succeeds alone. Business innovation can only happen when teams are purposefully interconnected and working toward a shared vision.
In a note made public through the Steve Jobs Archive, Jobs emailed himself on September 2, 2010. In this reflective message, he acknowledged his dependence on the work of others, from the food he eats to the technology he uses, and expressed admiration for humanity's collective contributions.
“I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I did not breed or perfect the seeds. I do not make any of my own clothing. I speak a language I did not invent or refine. I did not discover the mathematics I use. I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate. I am moved by music I did not create myself. When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive. I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object-oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with. I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well-being.”
Jobs’ email to himself is a fascinating example of quantum storytelling and integrating high-tech and high-touch elements in innovation.
Quantum Storytelling
Quantum storytelling is about seeking and finding narratives that transcend linear time. It’s about inviting multiple interpretations and layers of meaning. Jobs’ email reflects on how the ancestral past shaped his present and projected into the future, where the acknowledgment of dependence on collective human innovation positions his personal experiences within the broader, interconnected human narrative.
By writing to himself, Jobs blurs the lines between the observer and the observed, a core element of quantum storytelling where the act of storytelling itself creates meaning across multiple dimensions. This reflection serves not only as a summary of his life but also as a seed for how future generations could understand the role of collective innovation.
High-Tech and High-Touch Innovation
Jobs’ email reinforces that creativity and innovation are high-tech and high-touch. He acknowledges reliance on the tangible, human elements behind technological advancements—food, clothing, language, art, music—emphasizing that technology serves a broader human purpose. High-tech refers to the advanced tools and technologies we create, while high-touch focuses on how these tools resonate emotionally and practically in daily life. In this sense, innovation must touch people’s lives meaningfully, enhancing well-being and connection. It must touch the lives of the people involved in the innovation process and those who will benefit from their efforts through the marketplace.
This is why Jobs’ legacy remains relevant—his creativity and innovation were not just about technology but about improving the human experience. The ultimate measure of all innovation, whether in the form of a microprocessor or a piece of music, is the degree to which it improves our human quality of life.
Interconnection
The strength of our connections shapes our quality of life. Creativity, too, is about connecting things. When Jobs reflects on the idea that he didn’t invent the language he speaks or the music that moves him, it highlights an essential concept for modern industries: networked collaboration.
In sectors like AI, telecommunications, and healthcare, collaboration is fundamental. These fields require contributions from various disciplines—coding, research, psychology, design, and more—to advance.
Cross-pollination of expertise is crucial in industries like entertainment, where success requires more than just technical know-how. It demands a deep understanding of human behavior, emotions, and psychology, which merge to create experiences that are simultaneously personal and communal in their resonance.
Jobs’ words also highlight the importance of trusting the broader innovation system. Medical breakthroughs, for example, rely on generations of research, testing, and refinement. The COVID-19 vaccines are a recent illustration—they developed quickly because scientists worldwide built on decades of prior research. But beyond the technology itself, public trust in healthcare innovation is essential. Without that trust, even the most advanced innovations may fail to achieve their full impact.
The clarity with which Jobs acknowledges his dependencies is a sober reminder of the iterative nature of innovation. He underscores the importance of drawing on the past while shaping the future. This is where the skills of wonderpreneurs become important—those who bridge different disciplines to spark creative breakthroughs. By connecting seemingly unrelated ideas, they help industries push past traditional boundaries. Balancing tradition with novelty creates environments that feel both fresh and grounded. Leaders who know how to maintain this balance of Creative Brain Capital will have big opportunities in the months and years ahead.
Echoing Future History
No matter which industry a person may work in, we are all part of a legacy. The technologies, systems, and innovations we depend on today were developed by those who came before us. But this legacy isn’t just something we inherit—it’s something we shape for the future.
Jobs’ reflection is more than just a commentary on his personal experience—it’s a statement about the interconnected nature of innovation across industries. The lesson from Jobs' words is clear: No one can succeed alone.
Wonder drives creativity, and creativity drives innovation. Innovation drives the future. Reclaim wonder, and we reclaim the future. America thrives when we work together in our creativity, build on the work of others, trust in collective progress, and remain committed to the freedom and joy that make innovation meaningful.
Wondervation, our emotional creativity, is the link between our immense potential for cognitive creativity and the social creativity upon which we must rely to implement innovations that can improve people’s lives.
All of it— all of us— are interconnected. Sometimes, we need to look at it differently to see it.
You There
A Poem of Interconnection by Theo Edmonds (2009)
You know where life is taking you. You think you know. You want to know. You try to know. You never actually know - You see someone on the subway. You meet eye to eye. You laugh about something funny... (like how the rats running across the subway tracks actually look cute sometimes.) You decide to grab a coffee together. You walk. You hear vintage Bob Dylan playing in a little Brooklyn diner. You enter. You smell the bacon. You think - mmmm! You eat together. You reach for the sugar at the same time. You touch hands. You blush. You fight over the check. You lose. You walk out the door. You smile down the street. You hug on the cold, sunny, Sunday afternoon. You exchange numbers by entering them into your i-phone. You hug again. You part. You go down under. You rattle in a subway car back to Harlem. You come up above. You text message the new number when reception comes again. You walk up 145th Street typing into your i-phone. You text you are "glad we met". You get a text back that says "same". You arrive back at your studio. You take off your clothes. You get out your paint brushes. You caress a new canvas. You begin to paint. You know where life is taking you. You think you know. You want to know. You try to know. You never actually know - You see a wet, new canvas on the wall. You meet eye to eye. You laugh about something funny. (like how the rats running across the subway tracks actually look cute sometimes.)
Theo Edmonds, Culture Futurist® & Founder, Creativity America | Bridging Creative Industries and Brain Science with Technology and Future of Work
©2024 Theo Edmonds | All Rights Reserved. Please credit the author when using any of this content. The views expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of any organization with which the author is affiliated.