When something truly new and innovative comes along, it can be easy to dismiss it as a fad or something that’s already been done before.

And even if something has been done before, it’s worth considering why the concept hasn’t taken-off and become ingrained across society.

Much has been written about Facebook and how it got to where it is today. Many other social networking platforms preceded Facebook, so what Mark Zuckerberg did wasn’t 100% original as a concept.

And he built Facebook on ideas developed with – and by – other people. But there’s no question Mark Zuckerberg has been the driving inspiration behind Facebook and its rise to (near) global domination.

It’s all about timing

But whilst execution is a vital component behind innovation and success, social change plays a vital part too. The time really has to be right.

With Facebook, the execution was impeccable. And the time, it seems, was definitely right too. At school, university, work and at home, people were becoming accustomed to life on the web. E-commerce, email and information/news sharing was already the norm, so the time was right for people to truly start networking socially in cyberspace.

So, it’s safe to say that the best way to innovate is to proactively respond to social change. You have to be ahead of the game, but not so far ahead that people really don’t get what you’re doing.

By looking out at the world, social, economical and political changes are key signs that new opportunities are on the horizon.

Low-cost airlines: a case in point

Low-cost airlines are a good example of this. European ‘no-frills’ airline EasyJet’s initial underlying philosophy was to make flying as affordable as a pair of jeans (not Gucci jeans, by the way…), and travellers were encouraged to cut-out the middlemen – the travel agents.

Between launch in 1995 to March 1998, EasyJet offered nothing more than a hotline telephone number for customers to call. Owner Stelios Haji-Ioannou initially dismissed the Internet as a tool for nerds.

A trial website was approved, however, with a different reservation telephone number on the website to tracks its success. The results changed the owner’s mind and an e-commerce website was commissioned, one that offered a fully-functional online booking service. EasyJet was the first low-cost airline to do so in Europe, launching EasyJet.com in April 1998.

Together with RyanAir, EasyJet helped kick-start the low-cost airline revolution in Europe. But was it all their idea? No, they based their model on Southwest Airlines in the US.

Using an existing, proven ‘no-frills’ strategy to keep their costs down, EasyJet was able to take on the might of the major national air-carriers across the continent, satiating a desire to fly, well, without frills. And by recognising the latent power of the Internet at a relatively early stage, EasyJet took Europe by storm.

The future’s bright, the future’s…in the crowd?

So in 2011 and beyond, how are things looking for the traditional creative agencies? We’ve already discussed how there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and how Crowdsourcing cuts the crap by tapping straight into the source of the creativity. You get (and pay for) what you need, nothing more.

It has taken a long time to evolve the traditional agency/client relationship. But change is happening, because social and economical circumstances are permitting it to do so.

The digital revolution is well underway, allowing the power of the crowd to be harnessed. But technology is only one of the driving forces.

If we’ve learned anything from the global financial crisis, it’s that money certainly doesn’t grow on trees. A dollar saved is a dollar earned. We could throw any number of fiscal clichés at you, but the bottom line is everyone has been given a massive financial wake-up call.

The convergence of circumstances is paving the way for a completely different model of agency: creative services exchange.

To innovate, you have to speculate…and blur Group speculates that the future belongs to the crowd.