Making Innovation Flourish

Risk-taking for the future

In the latest of our essays on how best to prepare young people for the future, Donna Miller, Human Resources Director, Europe, at Enterprise Rent-A-Car asserts that the developing the skill of risk-taking in young people is crucial.

She says: “Young people need to understand that risk underpins many facets of life, including workplace skills, creativity, enterprise, decision-making and problem-solving.”

An informed attitude to risk-taking is also fundamental for innovation as it requires experimentation, endeavour, the ability to overcome fear of failure and the competency to weigh up different options and, when necessary, to invent one’s own opportunities. 

NESTA’s Future Innovators programme is currently working with a range of partners on new ways of developing an awareness of risk-taking in young people or those who support them. Our pilots include a project to examine how this skill can be embedded into the curriculum for Design and Technology, a scheme to encourage adults working with young people to manage their own reactions to risk and an online psychometric tool to encourage young people to think about the risks they take and face in daily life.

We’re interested in learning about other projects that aim to develop risk-taking in young people.

Can you teach enterprise?

In the latest essay from our series on ‘Preparing for the Future’, Claire O’Halloran from Microsoft poses the question: “Can you teach enterprise?” Professor Dylan Jones-Evans, Director of the National Entrepreneurship Observatory for Wales argues that “you can’t teach it, but you can learn it.”

What you do think?

Claire goes on to argue that developing entreprenuerial skills requires people to be open to learning and to try to think “more like an entrepreneur”. She believes that, in many cases, this is about giving people confidence.

But how do we learn these skills and gain this confidence?

Coverage of the Innovation Edge conference

Photos from the event are beginning to appear on Flickr, and a reminder that we will publish the video along with the audio later here .

A selection of blog posts covering yesterday's Innovation Edge conference - drop me a note if you spot any others:

Telegraph Technology blog - Claudine Beaumont’s blog and here

NTOUK.com - Jerry Fishenden's Technology Policy blog

Projector Films - This blog is great says Gordon Brown
Nature Network - Editor's blog
Steve Clayton - Blown away by Bob
A work on progress

FreshNetworks
What NESTA’s learnt about innovation

An education system to support innovation?

Are online networks the new cities?

Collaboration not cooperation The panel session at the NESTA Innovation Edge event

Geldof and the power of unreasonable people

Vague but exciting

Jonathan Mitchener: A collaborative future?

James Swanston

The Sustainability Opportunity  Is it just about winning?

Cased Gordon Brown in successful speech shocker!

Chamtech: Innovation at the Innovation Edge Conference?

Entreprenurses 20/05/2008: Meeting Bob Geldof at the NESTA Innovation conference

BookTwo: Funding gap, knowledge gap

Benjamin Ellis blogs about the Innovation Edge

Perfect Path Cognitive Surplus at Conferences

Tealady: Innovation Edge

Podnosh: Host written

Nick Temple from the School of Social Entrepreneurs   Innovation Edge: some live blogging from opening plenary at the Innovation Edge

Kevin Davis From Sir Bob to a lighter shade of Brown stuff

Desperation is the father of necessity

Bob Geldof has given a well-received, passionate and compulsive speech on... well, a whole host of things really.  Working without notes, he effortlessly managed to both make sense and re-write history (or perhaps more fairly, look at history through a very specific lens) in equal measures, wrapped up in the kind of eminently quotable phrases that make him a journalist's dream.

He spoke at length about change, and about opportunity.  The changes in him, the UK, and what needs ot happen to meet the challenges of tomorrow, and the opportunities that are presented by the web, collaboration, the developing world and more generally, within ourselves - we are the agents of our own destiny.

His key points (I will revisit this later):

• the UK is becoming more risk-averse
• decisions should be made more locally.  The paradigm must be collaboration, not [edit] competition.  Facebook, widgets, open source - these are the future.
• inter-dependence on almost everything means we need to communicate and co-operate better.
• Enterprise is the attempt at trying.  Failure is nothing.  99% of the things I've tried were failures.  It doesn't matter that I failed.  The manager enables the ideas of the entrepreneur.  The entrepreneur needs to know when to step back.  We're losing the ability to celebrate this.
• we are all connected and increasingly inter-dependent.  'You don't die of droughts, you die of politics'.  We cannot ignore the problems of others.  Why is China investing billions in Africa but 'our guys' aren't?

And he left us with a big challenge.  Where are the ideas going to come from in this new world?

• all change comes from the self.  There must be a commitment to change.

Tim Berners-Lee on the future of the web

Just finished listening to Jonathan Freedland interviewing Sir Tim Berners-Lee live on stage at the Innovation Edge conference.  It's always odd seeing your heroes, and for once, he didn't disappoint.  TBL was charming, self-effacing, and more importantly, made interesting and intelligent points on the future of the web.  NESTA has helped fund the Web Science Research Initiative which he has set up, and he outlined most of his reasons for setting this up in an all-too brief video linkup.

What lessons can be learnt from the way he developed the web?
You need to give people space and time to find solutions.  Give them a chance to try and see the bigger picture, to find the generalised solution where possible.  And if you are asking or funding someone to develop a solution then don't micromanage them.  Specifically, if you tell them what to produce in too much detail  you'll end up with the same old ideas you had. 

And bear in mind that the end destination can come from left field - he quotes a possibly apocryphal story of Einstein's 'if we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be called research.'.

What are his hopes and fears for the 'adolescence of the web'?
Berners-Lee was very keen to point out the distinction between the people who use the web (and therefore the society that this creates or reflects) and the technology, or 'substrate' as he calls it, that underpins the web. 

Fundamentally, he sees the web as 'humanity interacting' or more prosaically, as 'humanity connected'.  Technology should not get in the way or dominate.  So, the web should be neutral, enabling new ways of democracy, new ways of doing science etc...
 
What is the rationale behind web science?
"We found that people doing interesting things tended to fall between various stools - computer science, psychology, economics etc.  The web needs to be thought of less as a series of connected computers to 'humanity connected'.  There are more web pages out there than neurons in your brain.   It's a very big system - one which we rely on - and it is not obvious what its properties are?   Will the blogosphere keep a check on the press?  Or will the blogosphere turn into a rumour mill and spread hatred etc - as part of a cultural revolution?
 
Is the web stable?  TBL is arguing that we need a science to understand this.  And we have a duty to understand it, so that we can take care of it.  He spoke of the unexpected or unintended effects of the micro leading the macro - eg ebay's role in driving down the prices of new items.

How fragile is the web?
Commenting on the 'megalapse' or the potential for the web to meltdown.  TBL argues it's more subtle threat than this.  Will the web be a force for the good?  The web may work fine but the society may not be one you want to live in, eg the use of email has arguably passed the tipping point of spam usage.

Is the future of innovation about collaboration?
The world is full of groups working and making their 'own language' .  The web should be making this more transparent and enabling more people to contribute.  Challenges in medical advances can only be done collaboratively, the problem is simply too big for an individual to keep in their head.  How does this work when one person's head has half the idea and if another has the other half.  How can the web help enable this solution?

Well, how can it?

*Update - podcast now online here

Part of the national character?

We're underway at the Innovation Edge.  There are thousands of people here - delegates, speakers and exhibitors.  There's a very real buzz around and it's a nice day to boot!

Chris Powell, our Chair, has set out the agenda for the day, looking to remind ourselves of the need for innovation in the first place, and to discuss where the leading edge of that innovation may be or take us.  In a broad overview of the state of innovation in the UK, he spoke of the ways that DIUS and DCMS are helping to embed innovation in the UK, and citing examples such as the Fairtrade Association of innovation in action.

Jonathan Kestenbaum, our CEO, has built on these themes by restating our mission - to improve both the capacity and climate of innovation in the UK.  He summarised it in three key areas:

• risk - NESTA is at it's best when it takes risks, experiments.  Innovation flourishes when there are a committed set of risk-takers in this country.
• the power of partnerships, collaborations.  In the diversity of disciplines, sectors and approaches comes real breakthroughs.  And it's not just us - there are a growing set of public sector, voluntary and other organisations driving this forward.
• a huge national appetite for doing things differently.  There is a common misconception that Britain has no appetite for innovation, which is simply not true.

Real innovation is not an elite activity the way it used to be - it's now part of the national character.  He left us with a quote from Bobby Kennedy - 'the future belongs to those with passion, with reason and with courage'.

Do you agree?  Is innovation now part of the British mind-set?  Do we have the right skills and attitudes, or are we on the way to develop these?

*Update - Podcasts are now being uploaded - first sessions are now online.

Preparing for the Innovation Edge

It's a little over 18 hours away from the start of our flagship conference at the Royal Festival Hall.  The organisation is buzzing, and there's a hive of activity going on making sure that the event is both an interesting, enjoyable and useful experience.

As Roland has already mentioned, we will be trying to capture a flavour of the day both on twitter and on this blog.  If you are blogging on the day, drop me a line or tag your content 'innovationedge' and I'll add you to the list.

I'm particularly curious to see how this kind of micro-blogging and backchannel will pan out with such a mixed audience.  Will it be just the social networks crowd participating?  Or will more of the policy and investments audience join in?  What lessons can we draw from this form of rapid-fire, informal, communications - and how does it relate to our other channels and methods of communication - will blogging reduce or magnify the impact of the reportage that will follow?  Are the blogerati looking forward to the same things I am?

I guess we all find out tomorrow....

Matt Rhodes at Freshnetworks is blogging the event as well

The confidence to succeed

In this week’s essay, 15 year old student Leila Thompson expresses her concerns about the future world of work.

She says: “I do worry about getting a job in the future. Jobs and placements seem to be getting much more competitive; even finding a week’s work experience is proving to be difficult for me.”

Leila concludes that, in her opinion, providing opportunities for young people to develop confidence, independence and initiative, is as important as qualifications and early stage careers guidance.

Policy changes, such as the introduction of 14 to 19 Diplomas and plans for raising the school leaving age in England; and the Determined to Succeed initiative in Scotland, will dramatically increase the demand for effective and relevant methods of work-related learning.

Given Leila’s concerns about current provision, how do we enable the system to meet this increase in demand and how do we ensure that the opportunities available support young people to develop the attributes she identifies?

We must think creatively about how to tackle the issue of meeting demand without sacrificing learning opportunities and quality. At NESTA, we’re currently exploring new models of work-related learning which will, in part, attempt to address this.

As always, we welcome your comments.

The Future is a Shared Responsibility

In the latest essay from our series on ‘Preparing for the Future’, Karen Halford, Head of Resourcing and Development for Vodafone UK, argues that the future is a shared responsibility. This requires employers and education to work more closely together to instil in young people leadership, interpersonal skills and teamworking, together with an understanding of the role of technology in business.

The difficult question is how do you do this? Most schools and colleges would welcome closer links with employers and, similarly, a lot of businesses recognise the benefits of engagement. But there are cultural and logistical barriers that need to be overcome.

NESTA is currently exploring new models to address these challenges in three different sectors: the creative industries, third sector and rural economy.

What do you feel are the best ways of bringing education and business together for mutual benefit?