The Greatest Innovations of All Time

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Following the collapse of the dot-com companies early this century, a large number of high-ranking economic officials visited from Russia. What they wanted to know most was: How many executives were put in jail in Silicon Valley after their companies went bust? When the answer was none, they were stunned. More to the point, it was completely inconceivable that those same individuals would be in demand to run well-financed companies again soon—largely because of the presumption that they had learned from their experience.

Genetic sequencing at No. 14 is a bit of a stretch—it hasn't yet proven its value, though most theorists believe it will eventually be the key to preventative medicine and longevity. Containerized shipping is not obvious, either. But nothing in the course of humanity has done more to make goods accessible and affordable, and it has helped to streamline the global supply chain.

Still, the most important lesson for would-be innovators here only comes clear if you look at the list as a whole, not at the individual items. If you squint at these innovations just right, you discover that none of them is a product—not a single one. Yet when you stick smart people in a room and ask them to innovate, they will virtually always brainstorm new product ideas. We seem to be hardwired to focus on precisely the wrong place when it comes time to innovate.

Platforms

Instead our focus should be on platforms: broad capabilities that have the potential to cut across industries, markets, and applications. Platforms often have some proprietary capability at the core, but not always. Indeed, it is common for platforms to integrate many otherwise ordinary ideas into a whole that is collectively remarkable—as is the case with most of the innovations on the list, and the reason they go beyond mere inventions.

In this way, platforms have big ambitions. They take something hard to do and make it routine, affordable, and robust. As the famous science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke used to say: "A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

So look closely at the list of 15 top innovations of all time. What you will notice is that every single one of them is a platform. They transcend enterprises, industries, and political borders. They had the power to change the world. And so can your own innovations—as soon as you learn to think of them as platforms, not products, and expect them to be big enough to change peoples' lives. Then you're cooking…

See a slideshow of the 15 greatest innovations of all time here.

Keeley is president and co-founder of Chicago-based Doblin, a leading consulting firm that focuses on effective innovation. He lectures frequently and teaches at IIT's Institute of Design and the Kellogg Graduate School of Management.