There are various approaches to define Innovation. Innovation can have various or different meanings to various or different people. Since there are so many definitions for Innovation — As a student, I present the top 10 along with the sources or individuals who defined them. You may find individuals and sources from all walks of life providing their own perspective or a definition of Innovation itself. The remaining for you to find from the Internet as a TODO through your own efforts.

1. Innovation is “The creation of new products and/or services.” [Investor Words]

2. Innovation “Lowers the costs and/or increases the benefits of a task.” [Yost]

3. Innovation is “A patentable solution (external verified uniqueness) with a differentiated business model that changes the basis of business for that specific industry sector.” [Ray Meads]

4. Innovation is “To dare to challenge mainstream thinking and behavior pattern.” [Lars Christensen]

5. Innovation is “The practical translation of ideas into new or improved products, services, processes, systems or social interactions.” [The University of Melbourne]

6. Innovation Tournaments: “A new match between a need and a solution.” [Christian Terwiesch and Karl T. Ulrich]

7. Innovation is then “Simply new technology, i.e. the systematic application of (new) knowledge to (new) resources to produce (new) goods or (new) services.” [Maciej Soltynski]

8. Innovation is “The successful exploitation of new ideas.” [Ber]

9. Innovation is “The creation of something that improves the way we live our lives.” [Barack Obama]

That one definition that is accepted by most: Innovation is a) something fresh (new, original, or improved) b) that creates value

It is important we also quote from Wikipedia: 

Innovation is defined simply as a “new idea, device, or method.“

However, innovation is often also viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs. This is accomplished through more-effective products, processes, services, technologies, or business models that are readily available to markets, governments, and society. The term “Innovation” can be defined as something original and more effective and, as a consequence, new, that “breaks into” the market or society. It is related to, but not the same as, invention.

“Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value, more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.” [Sir Ken Robinson]

Wikipedia provides the following definition:

Creativity is a Phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a literary work, or a painting).

It is very important that one is able to appreciate the difference between Creativity and Innovation before getting ahead with further topics. 

Value + Creativity + Execution = Innovation

Something new is not enough for the definition of innovation. There are plenty of cases where something new has no new value ( a new color of a product or a new chemical produced that does nothing). Sometimes, the value creation results because the item is simply useful to us. We can create a lot of fresh or new things that are of no use and no value. It must create value to be innovative. Also note that the “something” could be a process, product, or service and can start as small as your ideas and thoughts in your brain. In that case, it might just be innovative thinking.

This piece from Business Inside Australia is apt in putting the right thought process across in an Organizational or Corporate Context, including Software Product Companies.

[The main difference between creativity and innovation is the focus. Creativity is about unleashing the potential of the mind to conceive new ideas. Those concepts could manifest themselves in any number of ways, but most often, they become something we can see, hear, smell, touch, or taste. However, creative ideas can also be thought experiments within one person’s mind. Creativity is subjective, making it hard to measure, as our creative friends assert. Innovation, on the other hand, is completely measurable. Innovation is about introducing change into relatively stable systems. It’s also concerned with the work required to make an idea viable. By identifying an unrecognized and unmet need, an organisation can use innovation to apply its creative resources to design an appropriate solution and reap a return on its investment. Organisations often chase Creativity, but what they really need to pursue is Innovation. Theodore Levitt puts it best: “What is often lacking is not creativity in the idea-creating sense but innovation in the action-producing sense, i.e. putting ideas to work.”]