Nice bit of research on the spike in numbers of books with the word innovation in the title.

Based on some Lexis-Nexis research they found:

• Between 1970 and 1980, there were exactly 55 articles that mentioned the term
• Between 1980 and 1990 this grew to 993
• Between 1990 and 2000 this grew to 3,575
• And from 2000 to 2007 the figure stood 4,583!

A small percentage of this is attributable to the general spike in book publishing, but that trend is nowhere near as sharp as the one suggested by the data above.

Which is again why I advocate people stop using the word, especially if they’re trying to achieve whatever it is they think it means.