Innovation Glossary
Browse 13 innovation terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.
13 Innovation Terms
- Code Trailblazer
- A developer or team that goes first into new technical territory, establishing patterns others may later follow. In engineering slang, code trailblazers are...
- Corporate Hackathon
- A hackathon run inside a company, usually encouraging employees to prototype ideas, improve internal tools, or explore experiments outside normal roadmaps....
- Corporate Innovation
- Innovation efforts inside established companies, often involving labs, incubators, internal startups, or special programs meant to produce new products or...
- Digital Innovation
- Innovation driven by digital technology, software, data, or connected systems rather than purely physical or analog change. In corporate culture the phrase...
- Disrupt
- Originally (Christensen): to fundamentally change a market by introducing a simpler, cheaper alternative that initially targets overlooked segments. Currently:...
- Disruption
- A change in how a market works that undermines incumbents by introducing a new model, cost structure, user experience, or distribution pattern. The word is...
- First Principles Thinking
- Breaking down problems to their fundamental truths and reasoning up from there, rather than reasoning by analogy. Popularized in tech by Elon Musk. Powerful...
- Grand Challenge
- A very large ambitious problem framed as socially or technically important enough to organize significant research, funding, or public effort around it. In...
- Mad Scientist
- A playful label for someone who pursues bold, unconventional, or slightly chaotic technical experiments with unusual enthusiasm. In startup and research...
- Moonshot
- An extremely ambitious high-risk project aimed at a breakthrough rather than an incremental gain. The word implies both scale of vision and low odds of easy...
- Permissionless Innovation
- The idea that new products and services should be able to launch and experiment without needing prior approval from incumbents or central gatekeepers. The...
- R&D
- Short for research and development, covering work aimed at creating new technology, products, or capabilities rather than only maintaining current operations....
- Three Horizons
- A strategy framework that separates efforts into near-term core execution, medium-term emerging bets, and longer-term exploratory opportunities. The model...
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