Innovation is a game that some companies who choose to play must know the rules of in order to be successful. Innovation is more than a buzzword, it is controlled chaos. Innovation is the chaotic explosion that creates heat and fire, that then pushes a piston to create linear energy that then gets turned into rotary motion, that makes it's way to move one's business forward.

Monetizing true innovation is a tricky balance of calculated failure and funding. I don't have an end-all be-all list of all the things any company can do to be a profitable innovator. I do however, have a short list that I feel is a good starting point. I don't think that innovation is a cookie cutter formula that can be applied to any company. If there is, then I feel it would have to be at too high of a level to be useful to anyone.

1. Learn from mistakes
True innovation and mistakes go hand in hand. If you are doing something stable, reliable and easy; you are not a true innovator. Mistake is not a bad word, it describes a condition where you expect something to happen that doesn't. Failure comes from not learning anything from your mistake. If you work to make an innovative product and you don't get what you expected, there is valuable information to learn that you should hold closely and apply to your next project.

2. Hire people who can identify unusual patterns
Innovation comes from the unusual patterns that occur in life. People who have a natural tendency to make far off connections and identify non intuitive patterns, are the ones who can do a great deal for an innovative company. What you want is to take what you learned from your mistakes and be able to apply them to other industries or use them to create new products. This quality is a tricky one to interview for but will be worth it in the long run.

3. Uncover needs from wants
Innovation is rarely about answering the call of what consumers merely want. It is about creating a solution to what consumers need. Distilling the need from the want can be quite a task. If a consumer says that they want a hole in their floor so they can watch their kids play, the role of the professional is to realize that the consumer doesn't want a hole in their floor. A hole is going to be dangerous and ugly and will devalue their house. Their need is to watch their kids, not a hole. A valuable solution would be to install a camera downstairs that they can remove when they sell the house and is installed with a couple screws along with a monitor; or even to move the kids upstairs. Discovering what will truly meet a need is what is going to get consumers to buy a product.

4. Be agile enough to spend money in the right place
Most business's don't tend to be able to make money off of innovative products alone. A said business typically has a strong money maker that funds the innovation. It can be easy to spend all of a companies money on creating new products and innovating, but a company can't lose sight of the original money maker. A company needs to understand that products need to be kept up to date to stay competitive, and by ignoring the original cash cow it is not a sustainable business practice.

5. Create a culture of innovation
Through the experience that employees have in working with a company, employees can be infused with the creative though process's that fuel innovation. I have seen companies take down cubicle walls to foster communication to give all employees cubes to foster focus. I have seen companies have all you can drink soda and all you can drink beer. Each companies needs are as different as the employees they hire. Each companies culture and innovation comes from different places and must have a custom solution. Realizing the best way to create this is for a particular company well worth the effort.

6. Set your expectations
You must face the facts innovation is: risky, expensive, difficult, time consuming, and chaotic. If that is forgotten too easily and not accepted from the get go, the end goal can be easily lost.