Invention is the easy bit

IDEAS are ten a penny. Put a handful of bright engineers in a brainstorming session and they will come up with literally scores of clever ideas for new products or processes. Invention is the easy bit. Innovation, by contrast, is the genuinely difficult part. And what makes a successful innovation usually has little to do with the originality of the idea behind it. What it does depend on—and crucially so—is the single-mindedness with which the business plan is executed, as countless obstacles on the road to commercialisation are surmounted, by-passed or hammered flat. Life in the fast lane really is 1% inspiration and 99% pure sweat.