Core77

A report from the Stanford Graduate School of Business looks at haute cuisine for insights about breaking category boundaries to create innovation. Their observations:

1. culture (i.e., music, food, art) is an area where violating categorical lines can lead to perceptions of inauthenticity
   
2. but authenticity is about following the rules, while still being original - a balancing act
   
3. the opposing worlds of classical and nouvelle cuisine are based in different philosophies, but as individual chefs began to borrow ideas and techniques the boundaries were lowered
   
4. The chefs who broke boundaries had influence and were copied by others, suggesting that the leaders of a field have more flexibility in their balance between originality and sticking to the tried-and-true (while still maintaining their audience's support for being authentic)
   
5. "Innovation corresponds with the weakening of the power of critics over time;" how palatable is the shift from the established rules - those who mediate and influence the tastes of consumers may be a powerful barrier