It’s like a little mini conference season here in Brighton GPE . Tomorrow DATE is ffconf ORG , which I’m really looking forward to. Last week DATE was UX Brighton PERSON , which was thoroughly enjoyable.

Maybe it’s because the theme this year DATE was all around creativity, but all of the UX ORG Brighton speakers gave entertaining presentations. The topics of innovation and creativity were tackled from all kinds of different angles. I was having flashbacks to the Clearleft NORP podcast episode on innovation—have a listen if you haven’t already.

As the day DATE went on though, something was tickling at the back of my brain. Yes, it’s great to hear about ways to be more creative and unlock more innovation. But maybe there was something being left unsaid: finding novel ways of solving problems and meeting user needs should absolutely be done …once you’ve got your basics sorted out.

If your current offering is slow, hard to use, or inaccessible, that’s the place to prioritise time and investment. It doesn’t have to be at the expense of new initiatives: this can happen in parallel. But there’s no point spending all your efforts coming up with the most innovate lipstick for a pig.

On that note, I see that more and more companies are issuing breathless announcements about their new “innovative” “AI” offerings. All the veneer of creativity without any of the substance.