“If the question is, ‘How can a company quantify and measure innovation?’ – then it’s certain the company is asking the wrong question”, comments Seth Godin.

“Innovation happens long before the benefit is realized. And, by definition, each innovation is different than the one before it. As a result, you can watch an innovation become profitable and then say, ‘Wow that was great, let’s buy some more of that.’

Great organisations have faith in their future, and part of that belief is that innovation pays, even when it doesn’t. It pays because the next innovation — the one after this one — will pay.

And if we embrace the process, not the event, we win.