Venus Genius

The Female Prescription for Innovation

Fabienne Jacquet

• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781636761251
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Women in Business
• Index: Business

Venus Genius: The Female Prescription for Innovation explores innovation from different perspectives: historical, scientific, sociological, cultural and practical - all through the feminine lens. It addresses the shortage of women in innovation and how important it is to address this as a first step to inclusion. This book reveals that any innovator can acquire the necessary skills to create meaningful innovation. Venus Genius is about celebrating the duality of the feminine and the masculine in all human beings and dares us to activate both energies to create innovation that brings true value to our world.

To date, the world (and innovation) has been mainly driven by masculine energy, and we can no longer ignore gender. This book will help you discover that you have latent feminine skills and that, wherever you stand on the masculine/feminine spectrum, rebalancing towards the opposite makes you a more centered human being in your personal and professional life.

1.
HOW WE GOT HERE

1.
DEMYSTIFYING INNOVATION

Innovation is the action or process of innovating.

Wow! Google’s featured definition is definitely very helpful, isn’t it?13

“What is innovation?” is the million-dollar question. In fact, it is an almost two-trillion-dollar question, which is roughly the number of hits one gets when searching for “innovation definition.” Recently, innovation has become a buzzword that a lot of people use without really knowing what it is and understanding what it covers.

So, what’s innovation?

In my transition from corporate to the world of entrepreneurs and small businesses, I realized that people considered innovation as reserved for the elite. Most of them did not really understand what innovation was. Even big companies can be overwhelmed by innovation. A June 2020 report from BCG (Boston Consulting Group) reveals that 25 percent of big companies are confused by innovation, with inconsistent commitment and resource investment.14

Very smart innovators and experts went through the exercise of defining innovation. The outcome can be complicated or pompous. I personally gravitate around the short and impactful ones, like: “Innovation is creativity that ships,” (Steve Jobs) or “The future delivered” (Jorge Barba).15

Still, innovation can sound sophisticated and intimidating.

I would argue that it should be accessible and that anyone can be an innovator if one is curious, passionate, courageous, and ready to develop the right skills.

People pigeonhole creativity as belonging to a single individual or group of geniuses; they don’t realize that every human has this incredible capacity to imagine and to change things.

Anthropologist Augustin Fuentes.16

For my own definition, I opted for very simple language:

Something new that creates value.

“SOMETHING new that creates value”

When we think about innovation, we usually think product innovation (be it a beauty cream or a car), or technology (digital technologies, patents). Innovation is much broader. It can be a service (new distribution system like takeout or online selling), a process (Henry Ford’s invention of the world’s first moving assembly line), or a system (e.g. creating the first health savings account). It can also be an undiscovered combination of existing elements into a new breakthrough (the iPhone). What we more often see these days is business model innovation, like the “platform” business of Uber or Airbnb.

“Something NEW that creates value”

If what you create is not new, it cannot be innovation. Now, it’s all relative depending on the scope and impact of the innovation. It can be new to the world (the vaccine concept), or new to the industry (the electric car). Copying an innovation to apply it to your own company is not innovating. However, as we saw with the iPhone, combining existing technologies or innovations into a new concept or business model is innovation.

For instance, launching a shower gel with a new fragrance, which will basically cannibalize existing business, is not innovative. Launching a shower gel variant that emotionally connects to consumers to the point that it becomes viral on social media and brings incremental business by attracting new users and non-category users is somewhat innovative.

If we look at the etymology, innovation was introduced in the 1540s, from the Latin innovatus, past participle of innovare: “to renew, restore.” It also means transforming into something new, giving a new life to something.17 We may think of artists like the French painter Blase, who transforms classical paintings by adding a contemporary element.18

In our interview, Nelida Quintero, an architect and environmental psychologist, reminded us to stay humble: “I feel that sometimes we push too hard for being original: be the first or be new. But innovation, from my perspective, often happens when redesigning, rethinking, reconsidering something within different contexts or from different standpoints, and that in itself could be innovative.”

There is therefore an entire spectrum of newness, from minor to world-changing.

“Something new that creates VALUE”

This is the most important component of the innovation equation. When we think value, we first think “green:” bottom line, money. It’s certainly important, but value is far more than that. Like beauty, it’s in the eye of the beholder.

It reminds me of a great training I had in the corporate world around partnerships given by the Rhythm of Business consultancy. When talking about collaborations, they made us think about the value we could bring to the other party. They called it “currencies.” Beyond revenues, it could be image, connections, credibility, or knowledge. It depends on what you need the most in your current situation. It’s well known that if you are lost in Death Valley, a bottle of water is of better value than a $500 bill.

To summarize, as a simple example of all words being used, imagine this: a young entrepreneur created a rock-climbing training. One might argue that this i...