NESTA Connect

So what are we ACTUALLY going to do?

I have noticed that as soon as you use the word ‘innovation’ in a conversation, most people immediately assume that you’re talking from the realm of the epic and world changing or the spectacular and breath-taking. Whilst disruptive innovation is important, I think it sits at just one end of a wide spectrum, at an end that receives dis-proportionately large amounts of attention. Let’s spend more time at the other end, the end of the small and the incremental, the quick and the cheap.

The benefits of working in this space are so numerous that, rather than offer any comprehensive analysis or opinion here, I will simply throw up some that stand out for me:

RISK – lower both for resource and the implications of taking a new innovation to a market or society

TIME – quicker in terms of resource, process and seeing results; failing happens quickly

DIFFICULTY – fewer and smaller barriers to innovation process, implementation, roll-out; reduced stakeholder network complexity; smaller technical and conceptual leaps; credibility can be built

So what’s the best way of investigating this sometimes unfamiliar territory? I’m sure there’s a perfect algorithm somewhere that will beautifully describe the most effective and efficient approach. However, I believe we learn most effectively by simply doing, and this point in the spectrum provides an environment that is conducive to just that.

Let’s spread our attention more evenly across the innovation spectrum and allow ourselves to change the way in which we approach things. Whilst time for talking, discussing, meeting, strategising, postulating, hypothesising and analysing can’t be eradicated altogether, why not take some of this time to make sure we answer the question ‘so what are we ACTUALLY going to do?’ ?

Corporate Innovation Group

We hosted a corporate get-together last week together with Oracle.  In a way this was a follow up to our work together on Open Alchemy but this time not a formal programme.  The big idea was to convene a group of like-minded corporate open innovators and see what we could achieve together rather than separately.   The evening was a resounding success and it appears that there are lots of opportunities for joined-up working.  It is somewhat ironic that the ‘open’ in corporate open innovation does not include corporate peers as a matter of course.  The sorts of benefits that were discussed were to SMEs (give them a market to pitch for) , Corporates (better identification of needs and potential partners) and Government (being more in touch with the needs of industry).  From having run the P&G Open Innovation Challenge NESTA is aware how difficult it is for SMEs with good ideas to find the right door to open in any given corporate and we are also aware of the logistical difficulties of finding the right ideas and people from the corporate perspective.   Maybe some sort of Corporate Innovation Group is one of the answers?  I would be really interested to hear you views on this.

Commercial and Cultural Agrophobia

We have a cultural and commercial bias to fear openness and overvalue secrecy. So says Professor James Boyle, co-founder of Creative Commons and author of The Public Domain, who spoke at Nesta on Friday which I was sadly unable to attend. The webcast is available here if you want to take a look.

As a former professional musician and book publisher, I have seen at first hand the value of IP and the erosion of otherwise sound businesses due in large part because of ineffective IP management. Whilst our IP regimes are always lagging behind practice, I think we are at a point where this lag is so vast, that substantive change is required, else it risks becoming irrelevant which is in nobodies long term interest. This event seems to have been very interesting and thought provoking and hopefully will spark some debate, and I hope larger scale change in our IP regimes.

All Change in Corporate Innovation

There is much moving and shaking going on in the innovation marketplace at the moment.  Different firms are acting in different ways, both defensive and aggressive.  The latest 'most innovative companies survey'  (business week survey) shows how these reactions have been judged by the outside world. It makes interesting reading.  There are more newcomers to the top 50 than since the survey was started - almost a third are new.  These include predictable dynamics in automotive (e.g. VW in, GM out) and fewer US based companies overall too.  Another timely snapshot is the FT brand growth survey here which is an odd mixture of premium and budget brands.  Top of the list though are the China Merchant Bank and Blackberry (also a BusinessWeek survey riser in the guise of Canadian Firm Research in Motion) which are signs of the times.  Anyone care to predict the rising and falling stars for the 2010 survey?