Making Innovation Flourish

Innovation Technology: How new technologies are changing the way we innovate

NESTA’s Provocations are regular extended essays by leading thinkers that showcase
thought-provoking work on innovation.  In 'Innovation Technology: How new technologies are changing the way we innovate', David Gann and Mark Dodgson argue that a new set of technologies is emerging that enables firms to innovate more rapidly, efficiently and accurately than ever before. This 'Innovation Technology' (IvT) includes eScience, virtual reality, simulation and modelling techniques, and rapid prototyping.

Indeed, it is possible that it will have as profound an impact on economic growth and social well-being in today's knowledge economy as the development of machine tools had on the industrial economy of the mid-19th century.

Over the next decade, understanding what IvT does, how to use it and where its limitations lie will prove critical for those running businesses, working in firms and providing public services. As a result, government policy-makers at all levels would do well to appreciate its implications.

I welcome your thoughts...

The Innovation Manifesto

Suw Charman's recent exploration of the sources of innovation touches on a lot of the same themes as my earlier post and issues a warning about the current way in which people & businesses think about innovation. In reading through Suw's post, the key messages start to feel like tenets of an Innovation Manifesto (if such a thing existed*). Julia Styles summed these up nicely in her comment:

Innovation does not have a size...it can be a small change that helps solve a big problem.

Innovation is not in a vacuum, and anyone might have a solution, including young people and customers.

Innovation will succeed in business when the business accepts innovation as part of their corporate culture.

It's important to stay connected to technology and what's going on in the outside world and new media if we want to really be innovative.

And finally,
"Innovation is not a buzzword to be repeated in meetings, it's an action, a culture, a day-to-day activity."

While I agree for the most part, I'd adapt this one slightly: "Innovation will succeed in business when the business creates a corporate culture where innovation can thrive."

It's a small change, but important I think. Creating a climate that's conducive to innovation has to come first (only then will you be able to accept innovation as part of the culture). In my mind, the single biggest hindrance to innovation within a business is a culture that is closed, or overly hierarchical, or one where the pressure to perform means people can't see the forest for the trees.

I'd also add a few of my own tenets to the manifesto, namely:

• Innovation cannot be forced, and often not even planned.
• Innovation isn't always about creating something totally new. Adapting, combining and applying existing ideas in new ways can be just as innovative.

Do you have any other principles to add to the manifesto? What's your take?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Turns out a few others have already made a stab at their own Innovation Manifestos, including John Kao, who made his into a book (I'd be interested in your review of this if you've read it). Of those freely available online, my personal faves are this one (for its pure idealism) and Matthew May's Elegant Solutions (for its practical advice and applicability). It's also worth a look at Mind of the Innovator, another PDF from Matthew May on the eternally-inspiring site ChangeThis.

Ideo, Interdisciplinarity and Enterprise

Please Note : NESTA Connect's Blog posts have now moved

Thinking About Design

Please note: This post has moved

This week, we are fortunate to have a series of events at NESTA with three leading thinkers/speakers from the world of innovation.

Firstly on Tuesday evening, we are hosting Designerly Thinking with Bill Moggridge, founder of IDEO, one of the most successful design firms in the world and one of the first to integrate the design of software and hardware into the practice of industrial design. Then on Thursday, at the launch of NESTA Connect, we have Professor Eric von Hippel, Professor of Management of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at MIT and best known for his work developing the concept of user innovation (see his excellent book ‘Democratizing Innovation’). Finally, on Friday Karim Lakhani from the Harvard Business School, will be hosting a policy breakfast on the emergence of open source software communities and their unique innovation strategies.

In different ways, each of these events for me signals the growing awareness of the importance of design, or user-led thinking, in the development of better products, services or processes. By design, I don't mean funky kettles or stylish cars, though obviously these would be nice to have. Rather, I mean innovating from the user’s perspective to make products, services or processes easier to use through making them more intuitive. This sounds so blatantly obvious, it is easy to dismiss and yet we come across bad design in our lives so often we barely notice it. This weekend I was struck by the appalling (lack of) design of a local pedestrian crossing that makes crossing the road very difficult and very dangerous - I'd love the person who designed the crossing to actually try and use it and I can feel a letter to the council brewing. On the other hand I am an avid user of Streetcar, the pay-as-you-go car, which is very convenient and easy to use, and makes car ownership unnecessary in dense urban environments such as London. I believe the Streetcar service was developed by one of the emerging breed of service-design companies live|work.

This week sees the launch NESTA Connect which aims to build the UKs capacity for innovation through collaboration. Our focus is upon stimulating new, unexpected or extreme collaborations between different research disciplines, difference types of organisations and disparate communities. It is no accident that two out of the first three NESTA Connect projects have design at their core. I’ll post again soon with more information about these projects very soon. In the meantime, I'd be interested to hear of more unusual examples of good or bad design in action.

Social web for social issues

This morning's news about a screensaver and online social network for Alzheimer's sufferers and their carers is exactly the kind of social innovation the Innovation Challenges team are exploring. The screensaver is a simple application with the "why didn't I think of that" factor: a carer and person with dementia can upload text, video and photos to the screensaver to help them remember important people, moments and facts about their lives. It's great when an existing technology like this can be adopted and put to good use. If the social network element works well, I can see that being taken up by folks without Alzheimer's as well. Millions of elderly people live alone, and this could be their connection to other people out there. Sure, it's not the same as actual physical contact, and some considerations would need to be made for those not familiar with computers, but it could just be the lifeline that keeps lonely elderly people going.