People don’t think outside the box. They think in different boxes…the difference is that the new market hasn’t seen those other boxes before.

That’s the thinking of Andrew B. Hargadon, an associate professor of technology at the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of “How Breakthroughs Happen! The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate” (Harvard Business School Press, June 2003)

In short, most of the time when somebody creates something new they have built it from pieces of things they’ve seen before. That doesn’t take away from the novelty, but it does add a complexity of continuity.

To replicate the innovation process you must appreciate the role of continuity, or how ideas draw on the past.

For more of Andrew Hargadon’s thinking see:
THINKING

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