Enough With All the Innovation

At Wayne State University, a commuter campus in Detroit where faculty members and students struggle to turn people out for events, the opening of the Innovation Hub last fall was a big deal. I have rarely seen so many people in one room on campus. Speakers gushed about the university’s "innovation ecosystem" and the "disruptive" start-ups sure to blossom in its "incubators."

Speakers paced the stage giving TED-style speeches rich in the soothing platitudes of business books. To nurture innovation, explained one, "you’ve got to have serendipity and creativity, and that’s when two plus two equals seven — apologies to the math department," he added, chuckling at his own baffling joke. "You’ve heard the word ‘innovation’ a lot so far this evening," said another, apologetically, briefly giving me hope that the term would finally be defined, or better yet, discarded. He continued : "You’re about to hear it a lot more."