By encompassing rules as a foundational component, along with atoms and bits, the artifact expands our perception of what a new innovative entity can be. The term вЂartifactвЂ™ is necessary because it acknowledges recent thinking that the objects of innovative efforts are not just atoms and bits (see James GleickвЂ™s вЂ The InformationвЂ™ for a fascinating history and description of the relationship between вЂits and bitsвЂ™), but also rules. This in itself has some interesting implications that will be explored at a later time. The fact that one of the possible artifacts created by individuals or organizations can be another organization (or a change to an existing organization) makes the system recursive and self-referential. Here, the term artifact refers to any human construct that produces an outcome or experience that is measureable and meaningful to oneself or others.ДЄrtifacts include not only the products and services we normally think of when we consider the term вЂinnovationвЂ™ but they also encompass rule-systems such as business models, organizational structures, and operations to produce and deliver other artifacts as well as legal, economic and other social systems used to organize human behavior. The word вЂartifactвЂ™ comes from the latin arteВ вЂњby skillвЂќ +В factumВ вЂњthing madeвЂќ and was used by Herbert Simon in his 1969 book, The Sciences of the Artificial, to refer to phenomenon or entities that are вЂartificialвЂ™ in the sense that they are contingent upon a designer (as opposed to natural phenomenon). There is such a word that has been being used more and more lately and that word is вЂartifactвЂ™. It would be nice to have a term that encompasses all of these various meanings and can be universally used when discussing all of the various forms that innovation takes. In recent years, there has been much discussion about Design Thinking and Business Model Innovation where the object of the innovative effort is an experience or a Business Model вЂ“ an intangible collection of rules and relationships that determines wither individual or organizational action and behavior. вЂ“ each of which has a connotation that affects how the new thing is perceived. There are many names for this entity вЂ“ product, service, offering, solution, process etc. Any innovation effort has as its focus, the object of attention and effort, a new entity to be introduced into the world.

Sharpening artifact meaning