Just when the world thinks it has a handle on the process of innovation Apple changes the game.

You see conventional wisdom dictates that innovation either bubbles up from below at startups or from the outside at a remote R&D lab or – God forbid – by McKinsey.

Some bright spark comes up with a new way of doing something and then runs around trying to find venture financing or corporate sponsorship. Startups do innovation while corporates strive to innovate better. Ya de yadda.

Once the idea turns into product or service it has to wend its way through the political maze – internally and out in the market. Most withering on the execution vine.

Not so at Apple. Apple has mastered the very process of innovation. It is who they are. Apple has to be different because they don’t just make products that improve our lives, they make products that change our lives. Change industries. They have nailed the entire arc of innovation – from concept to market domination. Excelling at every step. Every time.

Entrepreneurs, CEO’s and strategists think innovation is just one of a number of processes they need to be good at. A business aspirin. How many times have you heard leaders bark ‘we need to innovate better’. Not so at Apple. Apple believes that innovation is the very essence of who they are. Innovation is their brand. Their mission. Their only reality.

So they have become the innovation masters. It is their strategic process. They’re right. Perhaps Steve Jobs’ greatest skill is connecting the dots. Predicting the future. Strategising like no one else. He has, as a result, figured something out that we all need to learn – the dots keep changing!

That’s the modern world. Changing faster than ever before. The only way to stay ahead is to keep re-arranging the dots. Which means to endlessly innovate. Not just producing another product. Another version, but to permanently worry about changing your industry. Irrespective of the cost to existing products. Endlessly smashing eggs to make omelet’s.

So which one are you? Into innovation, wanting to do it better, making it one of your key business processes. Or a true innovator. A specialists in one thing and one thing only – constantly re-inventing your space. I have this nagging feeling that the latter is the only way to stay ahead in the 21st Century. Cheers Steve.