The way I use the word, I usually intend it to mean covering a completely new idea. For me, execution, no matter how superior can never be innovative. It can of course be important, world changing, profitable, etc.
If I say that the ipad is not innovative, I mean precisely that there was no element of it that was an implementation of a completely new idea, but I don't mean to suggest that what Apple did with it is not amazing and transformative.
So yes, for me, innovative is usually a very high bar.
Jobs saw the mouse at Xerox and knew it was an idea whose time had come. The first mouse was innovative. The first optical mouse was innovative. The first mouse that reduced the number of buttons to one or reduced the cost to $30 was pragmatic and clever but not innovative.
If I say that the ipad is not innovative, I mean precisely that there was no element of it that was an implementation of a completely new idea, but I don't mean to suggest that what Apple did with it is not amazing and transformative.
So yes, for me, innovative is usually a very high bar.
Jobs saw the mouse at Xerox and knew it was an idea whose time had come. The first mouse was innovative. The first optical mouse was innovative. The first mouse that reduced the number of buttons to one or reduced the cost to $30 was pragmatic and clever but not innovative.