Innovation can be visible in the mission statement.

Recently, I checked a few mission statements:

Google: "To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. "

Amazon: "Our vision is to be earth's most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online."


Both have some interesting similarities:
1. To be the global leader 
2. To specify its value to its customers
3. They don't talk about a specific product as they have the ambition not to stick to their core business, but rather to continuously grow themselves in new domains.
4. They don't talk about a channel, as they don't want to be constrained by specific channels.

Now compare that to the mission statement of Barnes & Noble:

Our mission is to operate the best specialty retail business in America, regardless of the product we sell. Because the product we sell is books, our aspirations must be consistent with the promise and the ideals of the volumes which line our shelves. ....

Quite a difference, no?