“Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.” – Theodore Levitt
About Theodore Levitt
Theodore Levitt (March 1,1925, Vollmerz, Main-Kinzig-Kreis, Germany – June 28, 2006, Belmont, Massachusetts) was an American economist and professor at Harvard Business School. He was also editor of the Harvard Business Review and an editor who was especially noted for increasing the Review’s circulation and for popularizing the term globalization. In 1983, he proposed a definition for corporate purpose: Rather than merely making money, it is to create and keep a customer.
Levitt was born in 1925 in Vollmerz to a Jewish family.
He is widely credited with coining the term globalization through an article entitled “Globalization of Markets”, which appeared in the May–June 1983 issue of Harvard Business Review. However, as a NYTimes article notes, the term ‘globalization’ was in use well before (at least as early as 1944) and had been used by economists as early as 1981. However, Levitt popularized the term and brought it into the mainstream business audience. Between 1985 and 1989, he headed the Harvard Business Review as an editor.
Levitt died at the age of 81 years in his home on June 28, 2006 after a long battle with an illness.
(Source – Wikipedia)