ABSTRACT
Summary: The traditional practice of economy and innovation science focuses on the implemented innovations (such as, for example, iPod and iPhone) and counts the revenues received from them. However, neglecting the fact of the “killed” ideas and, consequently, the value of lost innovations is a huge blank spot in research. When people intentionally or unintentionally abandon their ideas without a wish to develop them any further and eventually implement them into practice, they thus abort potential innovations. This is what the phenomenon of the abortion of ideas is all about. The chapter concentrates on the well-known cases when individuals resisted abandoning their creative ideas and finally implemented them. These cases shed light on what today’s children, adolescents, and adults can learn from outstanding innovators in order to be able to save, develop, and implement their ideas into practice in the form of new products, processes, and services.
