Innovation Structure | Paul4innovating Innovation Views

Is innovation today expected as the panacea to solve all our problems?

I am getting increasingly disturbed., this week two people I know and respect have been talking about the innovation effect. Is innovation the business process re-engineering of our decade; is it part of a bubble like the dot.com boom.

Is innovation simply a fad and fashionable to talk up when we are in the present economic uncertainties? Is innovation durable or will executives move on to new ‘feeding grounds’ as they smell that possible wind of change? Yes, possibly, I hope not. Innovation is still a very fertile feeding ground.

Innovation is meant to be the catalyst of fresh jobs, new growth and leading us all out to the promise land of wealth and security. Can we place such a burden on the slim shoulders of innovation?

Politicians here in Europe and America are using the past tool kit of tried and tested methods to kick start their economies, restructure the mountains of debt we have accumulated and generally stimulate growth.

Our economies remains stuck, entrenched and resistant, even some are about to possibly plunge even further back. So it becomes “time for playing the innovation card”.
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My arguments for a common collaborative framework for innovation management

Following the release on Monday, April 25, where we published a Collaborative Innovation Reference Model by Jeffrey Phillips of OVO Innovation and myself, Paul Hobcraft of Agility Innovation, I would like to put forward some further opening arguments for proposing the broad adoption of a common framework for the innovation management process.

You can read more about its background here and you are welcome to participate.

Why innovation does need a common reference point?
When you don’t have a common approach to something, in this case the management of innovation, you can have considerable pockets of inefficiency and a high level of ineffectiveness to deal with.
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A beta version of a Collaborative Innovation Framework

Jeffrey Phillips of Ovo and Innovate on Purpose fame, based in the US and viewed on http://www.innovateonpurpose.com , and I have combined to share a view of an innovation framework that aims to reduce many of innovations mysteries.

We describe and prescribe to a set of innovation methods that we believe can greatly simplify the innovation process. Here we lay out the beta version of a collaborative innovation framework.

Jeffrey has commented on his blog http://bit.ly/eBGKS5, “We believe that framework can help reduce the mystery and develop a “standard” for innovation which enables more firms to innovate and accelerates the adoption of innovation. This is not to say that the model we are developing will be a “cure-all” for every situation.

Any firm starting an innovation effort will need to adopt the model, and then adapt it to its needs. But by exposing the model and examining the different innovation “types” (business model innovation, open innovation, design-led innovation, service/experience innovation, etc) we can establish the validity of the approach and demonstrate that the model is a starting point for any kind of innovation effort.”

Over the next few days, we are unveiling the approach at InnovationManagement.se , with the article opening this discussion at: http://bit.ly/ee8ID7 and also at InnovationTools.com coming out later in the week.
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Open innovation stands at the crossroads- where to next?

Although open innovation has been around for some years, it is in the past three to four years the notion of open innovation has accelerated and moved very much and becoming embedded into the structure of many organizations.

Presently most organizations are dealing with the roadblocks surrounding open innovation either internally within their own structures or with the potential partners that they want to work with, for a more diverse innovation portfolio.

Arguably open innovation will merge into simply a way of doing innovation, then into something more specific. For me that is more into a collaboration and co-creation innovative approach I touch upon further in this article

Today we are broadly at an emerging stage of OI. In summary, you could say:
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Transform European activities around innovation ecosystems

The challenge today is to transform European activities around innovation. It is the same for the United States as the growth and job mantra will simply come from innovation. In the EU case, Innovation forms a central plank of the 2020 Europe goals.

Regretfully the next Titanic is waiting to happen.

In recent months there has been considerable activity to formulate the new policies to support innovation through EU funding. The EU has been inviting dialogue and offering a mountain of guidelines and suggestions to help us all. Much of the focus is on streamlining what is already in place.

I’ve called this on some different discussion blogs a little like “reorganizing the innovation deck chairs on the titanic as it heads towards an iceberg”.

There is enormous activity and pressure to perform as the past results of many of the EU initiatives have not delivered on the goals set, and there is this real urgent need to reflect upon the lessons learned from the failures of the Lisbon strategy.

It does seem the present ‘effect’ is put on more steam, lighten the load where we can and let’s try and navigate through these challenges (or icebergs), no time to lose.

Everyone is on high alert in Brussels and around the EU all busy doing their job to contribute to present dialogues on making innovation a success. We need to take really radical action in my view.

Perhaps we should be shouting “all stop”
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Social innovation comes of age in Europe

“Social innovation is about new ideas that work to address pressing unmet society needs”

The shifts taking place in Europe

The competitiveness and challenges that Europe faces in the next ten years are significant. Innovation has been placed at the heart of Europe’s 2020 strategy.

It is this clear recognition that innovation is the best means of tackling issues that will affect our future living standards is not new in itself, but it is this real political recognition of its place and importance, now that is.

Innovation is also our best means of successfully tackling major societal challenges, such as climate change, energy and resource scarcity, health and aging and becoming more urgent each day to address in more systematic ways.

European funding of innovation in recent years has perhaps placed far too much emphasis on research and development to deliver the growth and jobs it requires.
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Accelerating the evolution of Innovation Management PLEASE!

Sometimes you become concerned, this is one of those moments. I’m getting concerned that we need to take some urgent action.

The Corporate Innovation Manager- is stuck in the middle.

Recently I was going through a report, a very helpful one, by link http://bit.ly/gWqmO7 supplied by www.innovationmanagement.se on the Corporate Innovation Function- key findings and detailed results, commissioned by HEC Paris.

I was also reading some views expressed by Reinhard Büscher, Head of Innovation Policy at the European Commission, http://bit.ly/eB02ZR on the role of the innovation manager (IM).

Both paint a rather dismal picture of the position of the Innovation Manager within organizations- very fuzzy not yet well defined.
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Orchestrating the new dynamics of innovation fitness

In my work investigating different aspects of innovation activity, one thought tends to dominate my thinking and that is orchestrating the dynamics within innovation: “How do we achieve a better understanding of the dynamics of innovation within our capabilities to be more successful?”

I’ve already written in previous blogs about the need of “constantly checking for the pulse of innovation” ( http://bit.ly/c3G0Ta) and suggesting the way to “open up your thinking to dynamic capabilities for innovation success” ( http://bit.ly/bxTeYO).

I’d like to take this one step further in this blog and outline my thinking on innovative fitness landscapes and why they are essential to understand.

Each organization needs to know its Innovation Fitness Landscape- why?

There is a pressing need for a firm is to consistently build and reconfigure internal and external competencies and capabilities to address rapidly changing environments.

It is the mastering of this ability to achieve new, more innovative forms in rapid changing market conditions that will enable certain organizations to emerge as the winners of the innovation race.

This view requires a more ‘dynamic’ set of capabilities. Often the question becomes one of “which are the critical ones to focus upon to improve the chance of greater success?
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Dedicated Innovation Scientists and Engineers Group – the Growing Imperative

I believe we are arriving at a point of real value by organizing dedicated innovation scientists and engineers into a specialised innovation unit. Innovation has emerged into part science, part art and design, and plenty of engineering (social and process).

Today successfully managing innovation is getting increasingly challenging and placing considerable strain on the present design and structures of organizations.

A dedicated unit or group that draws from a range of disciplines and combines these into a new organisational unit has significant value to be at the forefront of designing the organizational change needed for innovation to be more embedded and integrated.

Let me explain why?
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Reflections from a tough 2010 for innovating differently in 2011

So here we are already in December. Budgets are being argued, numbers fixed, concepts and plans discussed, and those higher hopes that you can build out for a successful 2011 through innovating differently beckons.

Tell me what did we learn from 2010 from an innovation perspective that we can build upon in 2011? Here are some of my thoughts

For me, a number of important lessons or impressions come out of 2010 that I’ll continue to build upon in 2011 as areas of opportunity for changing, challenging or clarifying. These I simply summarize in ten points for this blog:

I felt 2010 was a ‘crossing point’ in innovation maturity to position us in 2011. We began to consolidate what we know, explore with growing confidence what we didn’t know and experiment in-between.

That was healthy in such a tough year of uncertainty. Now we need to build on this in different ways.
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