I defined innovation in 2018, and I'd keep the definition. The word is the problem.

In 2018 I wrote a piece on this site called "What on earth is innovation? Why a rat in your kitchen means a change is needed", which is still in the Internet Archive. Its argument was that people flinch at the word innovation because nobody defines it, and that the working definition should be a plain one: any new activity that adds value to your business. Eight years on I'd keep the definition exactly as it was. What's changed is that hardly anyone says the word any more, and the thing it was hiding is now called something else.

What I wrote then

The piece said people have an issue with the word because "we don't like what we don't know", and that in my early years in digital marketing I used words like innovation and product development and got funny looks from clients. Then it gave the definition:

"Innovation is any new activity that adds value to your business."

And it made the point that it doesn't have to come from marketing at all. A new piece of software for whoever does your HR counts. A new process for your bookkeeping counts. A better script for the person answering the phone counts.

Why that still holds

Because it sets a test that anyone can apply, which is the only thing a definition is for. New, and adds value. It doesn't count because it's interesting, or because it was expensive, or because it ended up in a press release.

Most of what gets sold as innovation to a small business fails the second half of that test, and the useful thing about the definition is how quickly it tells you so. A tool that automates something nobody was doing adds nothing. A rebuilt website that looks better and converts the same adds nothing. Meanwhile the dull changes that pass the test, such as answering the phone faster or writing down the three questions every customer asks, rarely get called innovation by anybody.

What the word turned into

In 2018, "innovation" was the word people used when they wanted to sound like they were moving forward without saying what they were doing. That job has been taken over by "AI", almost exactly. The pattern is identical: a real technology, a genuine set of uses, and a much larger quantity of people attaching the word to whatever they were selling already.

The same test cuts through it. Is this new for us, and does it add value we can see? If a tool writes your social posts in half the time but nobody was reading them, you've innovated your way to the same place faster. Our piece on what AI actually changes about marketing a small business is that question applied channel by channel, and whether SEO is dead now that everyone uses AI is the same test applied to the loudest claim of the lot.

The part I'd cut

The 2018 piece hung its argument on a television chef shouting at restaurant owners, which was fun to write and did no work. The point underneath it was that businesses have a life cycle and change can revive it, and that's true, but a metaphor isn't an argument. I'd now want the test, two examples that pass it, two that fail, and no celebrity.

How to use the definition

Take anything you're being sold, or anything you're considering doing yourself, and ask the two halves out loud.

• Is it new for us? Not new in the market. New here. Plenty of businesses have never done the ordinary thing properly, and doing it at last counts.
• Does it add value we could point at? Enquiries, time saved, costs down, fewer mistakes. If the answer is "visibility" or "presence", push harder until you get a noun you can count.

If both halves are yes, do it, whatever it's called. If only the first is, you've bought a new thing. Our one-page marketing plan is where we'd put the answer, and if you want somebody to apply that test with you, our 90-day marketing plan is that conversation with a price on it.