Making Innovation Flourish

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

Five ways universities drive innovation

Our latest Policy Briefing focuses on the five ways that universities drive innovation.  Universities have traditionally had three main missions: undertaking research; teaching; and transferring knowledge. The UK’s increasing need to innovate to meet the economic and social challenges of the 21st century will place further pressure on these roles, but importantly will also introduce two more – universities’ international and regional missions.

Universities increasingly provide important national and regional links into the global knowledge economy. They exchange knowledge, gather intelligence and facilitate international flows of highly-skilled people who, in turn, create and attract high value-added businesses. As powerful institutions with well-connected and highly-educated leaders, they are also important actors in regional networks, and help lead the design and delivery of economic development strategies.

However, few universities can excel in all five roles. Each must choose where to concentrate its efforts depending on its strengths and regional requirements. Government should encourage greater interaction between universities and the wider economy and society, and ensure that research funding encourages innovation.

As ever, I'd welcome any comments on this publication....

From lightbulbs to 3D TV

Please note : This post has moved

Last week I was fortunate to spend a day at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven in the Netherlands. The site itself is very impressive and hosts around 5000 engineers working on new technologies with ‘Open Innovation’ as their motto. And yet as recently as 2003, the site used to host just one big company, Philips.

Philips made a very deliberate decision to open up the way they operate, and the way they innovate. A clear indication of how things hare changed in a short space of time is the fact that there are now hosts over 40 businesses academic research institute and network called MiPlaza where companies share equipment and services such as cleanrooms. As a symbolic move, in 2005 they even removed the Philips sign at the entrance to the site, despite the major historical connections with the site.

We were fortunate to hear their Chief Technology Officer talk about their approach to open innovation. They now realise that it is much easier to sell successful businesses than it is to sell new technologies, and so they active spin out companies or technologies in the same was as many Universities.

I always find it fascinated to see how organisations re-invent themselves but this was made blatantly clear when we saw how Philips has moved on from starting out in lighting, progressing into Consumer Electronics, and now with a major focus is on Healthcare. The best ‘I want one of those’ moments came when they showcased a pretty spectacular 3D TV – like 3D cinema but without the cardboard red and green specs.

I am struck by the desire and ambition of companies like Philips to engage with ‘the outside world’ in a proactive way, and the opportunities for smaller companies, universities or individuals are significant, though it’s not always easy. Therefore, the theme of corporate open innovation is one of the three core themes that we will investigate through NESTA Connect launching in 2 weeks tomorrow and we’ll post again on this subject over the coming months.

The confusing ethics of modern life

Two stories which resonated with me this morning...

1) A colleague forwarded this nugget from popb*tch:
An avatar in Second Life has a larger carbon footprint than the average Brazilian

2) Slashdot commented on the world's biggest digital dump, where Chinese locals harvest the gold, copper and other valuable parts within discarded PCs from the West.

How should I feel about these things? It's a confusing state, as both coins have 2 sides.

I'll accept that the environmental cost in energy consumption of spending so much time online is greater than the footprint of most Brazilians. But on the other hand, it could be argued that the typcial American sitting at home on Second Life hanging out with virtual friends is actually making less of an environmental impact than s/he would if s/he drove his/her gas-guzzling car to meet up with real-life friends for a fast-food meal.

And sure, it's a real shame that there are so many toxic chemicals being carelessly dumped and unknowingly inhaled by Chinese workers in these PC-dumping grounds. But shouldn't I be feeling the warm fuzzies that this stuff is being recycled in some way, while also generating healthy incomes for poorer families?

I'm left in an emotional muddle by these things. My brain hasn't evolved the coping mechanism to process these kinds of confusing signals that we are bombarded with every day. I feel the real impact of the globalisation of media is constant mixed-message syndrome, in which people end up so confused about which angle to believe, they end up shutting down in hopes of ignoring it all.

Is anyone out there working on Emotions 2.0 ? If so, I'll gladly invest.

Where are the Brits?

This month BusinessWeek published their special report on The World's Most Innovative Companies. In looking at the top 50 table, I see that only 2 of the companies are registered in the UK: Virgin and BP. When you delve a little deeper and look at the sector breakdown, things start to get a little more interesting.

Previously unmentioned Tesco comes in at number 9 in Retail and Virgin quite naturally appears near the top (no 2) in Travel/Tourism/Hospitality.

But in the Energy category, the UK starts to shine a little more:
No 1: BP
No 3: Royal Dutch Shell
No 10: EDF Energy

I'm not sure what measures BusinessWeek are using to come up with the results, but it's interesting to see British companies making such a strong showing in the Energy category.

For an excellent commentary that delves beneath the results, have a look at Jena McGregor's piece for Yahoo!

Uploading...Innovation

I'm really excited about today's Uploading...Innovation event at NESTA. We have a great group of people coming from all kinds of different backgrounds, the commonality being that they are all building innovation communities on the web. To get things moving we have invited a number of people to deliver short sharp provocations and host the conversations that flow from them – maximum three minutes long – and the following people have accepted this challenge:

• Charles Leadbeater on the ideas behind his new book We Think
• Mark Earls on our herding instincts 
• Molly Webb on the insights emerging from the DEMOS project The Atlas of Ideas
• Dan McQuillan from Amnesty on using social media in campaigning
• Johnnie Moore and James Cherkoff will invite you to come together to co-create
• Mark Vanderbeeken from Experientia on a distinctive European approach to user centred innovation
• Jeremy Ettinghausen from Penguin on the crowdsourcing novel www.amillionpenguins.com

Otherwise, the event is open and democratic and anybody can suggest a topic of conversation, but with the group of people we have coming I don't think we'll be short of opinions. I'll post again during or after the event with an update, otherwise keep an eye on the event site here for pictures, posts and video clips.

Patents are not innovation

The report from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (Times, 21 February) stating that the UK is falling behind its global competitors, with regard to innovation, certainly makes for an alarming headline. But it doesn’t tell the full story: patents are not innovation.

Measuring innovation solely by traditional metrics, like patents or R&D spend, leads to a strong bias on scientific and technological invention. It completely fails to recognise innovation that is occurring in other areas of the economy like financial services, software, construction or oil and gas exploration.

NESTA’s recent report, ‘The Innovation Gap’, shows that when traditional innovation metrics are adjusted to reflect the make-up of our economy, the gap between the UK and other leading countries closes by as much as 80%. Worryingly, where innovation is not measured, little effort is put into encouraging it.

This is particularly concerning in service industries which make up around 74% of the UK’s economy and hold the key to our economic future in the face of increasing global competition.

We need to build on the Government’s commitment to innovation in science and technology and develop a tailor-made national policy to support innovation across the whole economy and wider society.