This paper outlines how innovation has been framed in contemporary Maori economic development using a simple dichotomy for landscape. On the one hand, the rapid diffusion of information communication technologies (ICTs) has "flattened" the world, reducing the costs of trade but making greater wealth, and presumably happiness and security, possible for those societies and nation-states that proactively engage with the processes of globalisation. On the other hand, others decry the obvious "lumpiness" of the world where poverty clearly constrains many individuals and communities from benefiting from any such engagement. This paper pulls together disparate ideas and examples of innovation with the aim of presenting some of the history and cultures of innovation relevant to Maori in navigating what is certainly a bigger world, flat or lumpy.