TII Innovation Journal

Technology transfer professionals without borders

"Isn't there a risk that the reckless drivers just use this device as a wake-up call and then go on driving ?"  The question was asked by the Swedish television reporter when Volvo introduced a system that videotapes the position of the car in respect to road markings and from them recognizes when the driver is about to fall asleep ("Driver Alert System"). Indeed, whenever some major innovation is presented, the discussion about the misuse will nearly inevitably start. This debate makes especially strong waves on innovations that have to do with human health or ethics (such as gene modification, stem cell research) but also with national or personal security (e.g. identification technologies) but also, due to the future orientation of technologies, tends to resemble witch hunt more than a search for the real benefits. In this light, the debate seems also to concentrate on the wrong kind of innovations - the technologies that we already know, and how they could be used for greater benefit, should be at least as interesting. A powerful example of this was  shown to the participants of the TII Annual Conference by Tony Marjoram, of UNESCO.

In the words of Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, the actual level of development is often restricted by lack of freedom, rather than any other issue. People cannot develop to their full capabilities because they are not free to do so, restricted by some combionation of matters out of their individual control. While this lack of freedom sometimes is due to reasons such as despotism and terror, it can also be due to everyday issues that could relatively easily be solved by input from outsiders. A case in point: acquiring household water in some poor areas of Africa. While the men of the families typically must work in farming or construction and children attend school, women could be a great resource for many possible ideas and activities, as well as participate in education, had it not been for the water problem. According to Marjoram, fetching water from the rivers or wells can often take the whole time of daylight for the women of these families. Again, says Marjoram, there are practically millions of different types of simple water pumps that could ease - or erase - this problem. It is just that technology trasnfer does not work in this way - we technology professionals (as well as most laymen) are too preoccupied with future technologies and their problems to see existing technologies and their use for common good.

One step to the direction of doing something to change the situations of many - creating freedom, to enable development - can eventually be the 100-dollar laptop, or "one laptop per child" (OLPC) initiative ideated by Nicholas Negroponte at MIT (see http://laptop.org). The product exists, and there are volunteer developers to continue the work, maybe to make 10-dollar laptop or something. But computer industry still attracts attention. What does not exist, surprisingly, is 10-dollar water purification systems, 1-dollar water pumps, and such applications of simple technologies that would really help the developing nations in a big way, to free their minds and bodies from everyday chores to develop. Maybe somebody in related business or research areas would be the visionary to start this initiative? Technology transfer professionals in the service of humanity...

The World's Most Innovative Companies according to BUSINESS WEEK

READ this interesting article. There is a summary in Podcast format as well.

The World’s Most Innovative Companies: "To discover which companies innovate best — and why — BusinessWeek joined with The Boston Consulting Group to produce their second annual ranking of the 25 most innovative companies. More than 1,000 senior managers responded to the global survey, making it their deepest management survey to date on this critical issue. Today, innovation is about much more than new products. It is about reinventing business processes and building entirely new markets that meet untapped customer needs. Most important, as the Internet and globalization widen the pool of new ideas, it’s about selecting and executing the right ideas and bringing them to market in record time. The new ranking has companies evoking all types of innovation. There are technology innovators, such as BlackBerry maker and newcomer Research In Motion Ltd., which makes its debut on the list at No. 24. There are business model innovators, such as No. 11 Virgin Group Ltd., which applies its hip lifestyle brand to ho-hum operations such as airlines, financial services, and even health insurance. Process innovators are there, too: Rounding out the ranking is Southwest Airlines Co. at No. 25, a whiz at wielding operational improvements to outfly its competitors. At the top of the list are the masters of many genres of innovation. Take Apple Computer Inc., once again the creative king. To launch the iPod, says innovation consultant Larry Keeley of Doblin Inc., Apple used no fewer than seven types of innovation. They included networking (a novel agreement among music companies to sell their songs online), business model (songs sold for a buck each online), and branding (how cool are those white ear buds and wires?). Consumers love the ease and feel of the iPod, but it is the simplicity of the iTunes software platform that turned a great MP3 player into a revenue-gushing phenomenon. Charts: Laurel Daunis-Allen/BW The BusinessWeek-BCG survey is more than just a Who’s Who list of innovators. It also focuses on the major obstacles to innovation that executives face today. While 72% of the senior executives in the survey named innovation as one of their top three priorities, almost half said they were dissatisfied with the returns on their investments in that area."

(Via URENIO Portal: Innovation, Environments of Innovation, Intelligent Cities and Regions.)

Innovation is the "yin" to globalization's "yang"

YET ANOTHER INPUT FOR THE TII ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2006, NEXT WEEK

Innovation is the "yin" to globalization's "yang": "

Frank Gens of IDC has written a great summary of the debate over innovation that recently took place at IBM's Business Leadership Forum in Rome. In his blog post, Frank addresses two 'nagging' questions about innovation, including one that was on the mind of nearly every business executive at the IBM event:  'Is innovation really as big a deal as IBM (and many other IT vendors) are making of it, or is it just the latest empty buzzword, destined to fade away in 18-24 months?'

The answer, not surprisingly, is that innovation really is a big deal, thanks primarily to the forces of globalization. Frank explains why:

'Why is the subject of innovation so important to business leaders?   The most obvious and powerful reason is globalization.  There is a direct linkage between the pressures of globalization and the urgent need for innovation, and this was right on display throughout the IBM event: from author Tom Friedman’s comments about the 'flattening world', right through to former EC Commissioner Mario Monti’s comments about the urgent need for structural reform in the Eurozone’s three largest countries...

Our research and others’ (including IBM’s recent CEO survey) show that innovation is seen by CEOs as a critical countermeasure to the growing pressures of globalization.  At IDC, we think of innovation as the 'yin' to the 'yang' of globalization: they have a strong positive-feedback relationship, with globalization fueling the need to innovate, and innovative companies being able to create value by leveraging globalization.  As I said at IDC Directions: 'Innovation is moving up the CEO’s agenda, and it will stay there as long as globalization is an issue - which will be for quite a while to come.'

Tags: innovation  globalization  yinyang

[Image: The Yin Yang Building]

"

(Via Business Innovation 2005.)

Technology Drivers

The workshop  session "INNOVATION AND GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS" (Information posted under "Globalisation debate at TII 2006 Annual Conference") will focus on Creativity as kay component by leader Guy Cloutier.   Some examples of creativity  (and potential technology drivers) are given in the article by Technology Review - 10 Emerging Technologies.  Nanotechnolgies appear to be coming of age and maybe will be the next tech spurt.  The article may be found at http://www.technologyreview.com/special/emerging/index.aspx

Interesting question to consider - who/what makes the greater impact - the creative individual or the market successful creative technology?

Smart City 2020

From URENIO about intelligent Cities and Regions to fuel the debate at TII's Annual Conference (Region-Technology-Foresight)

Smart City 2020: "

William J. Mitchell, Director of the Design Laboratory at MIT, writes about the emerging technologies that are poised to reshape our urban environments. Cities are fast transforming into artificial ecosystems of interconnected, interdependent intelligent digital organisms. This is the fundamentally new technological condition confronting architects and product designers in the twenty-first century.

The author argues that embedding intelligence in objects creates new functionality (that’s the usual motivation for doing it), but less immediately evident is that it also alters the shapes and sizes of parts and the spatial relationships among them. Eventually this enables surprising new forms to develop. As an example he mentions digital cameras. He describes the process of evolution of early models to a digital-imaging device that fits in our pocket, and finally its combination with a wireless telephone.

Mitchell notes that a particularly powerful design strategy under these conditions is to look for the ways that embedded intelligence loosens traditional relationships and constraints, and seize these as opportunities for fundamentally reimagining a product or system’s organization, shape, and scale. Following this, he presents five research projects:

   
• Concept car for General Motors from Mitchell’s Smart Cities research group in MIT.
   
• PlaceLab intelligent apartment from Kent Larson’s House_n research group in Cambridge.
   
• Smart parking from Carlo Ratti’s SENSEable City Laboratory.
   
• Free pixels in urban space from Mitchell’s Smart Cities research group in MIT.
   
• Robotic water droplets from Mitchell’s Smart Cities research group in MIT.

These projects, Mitchell says, intimate the emergence of a new stage in the evolution of cities. Preindustrial cities were mostly skeleton and skin — inert material arranged to provide shelter, security, and intensification of land use. In the industrial era, buildings and neighborhoods acquired more and more elaborate flow systems for water and energy supplies, sewage, ventilation, transportation, and trash removal. With their inputs, outputs, and artificial physiologies, they began to resemble living organisms. Today these organisms are developing artificial nervous systems that enable them to behave in intelligently coordinated ways. As the cities and their components become smarter, they begin to take new shapes and patterns. They become programmable. And the design of their software becomes as crucial — socially, economically, and culturally — as that of their hardware.

Sources

   
• BusinessWeek - Smart City 2020
   
• Metropolis Magazine - Smart City 2020 (revised version)

"

(Via URENIO Portal: Innovation, Environments of Innovation, Intelligent Cities and Regions.)

Creativity & Innovation in Science & Technology

Posted by Tim Janis:

Cloutier speaks of the need for change and adapting to current environment.  The following example is how Microsoft is changing.

Excerpted from Technology Review 
March 2005 - Microsoft: Getting from 'R' to 'D'
“The software giant's Beijing lab is spearheading a new way to turn research into products.”

By Robert Buderi, in Beijing

Executives from Microsoft’s Beijing research lab brainstormed a promising solution to a fundamental problem facing Microsoft and many other high-tech companies: how to move m ore innovations more swiftly and effectively from research to development to market. Their idea: a new type of organization designed to bridge the gap between "R" and "D" and in the process overcome many of the product development bottlenecks and geographic and cultural differences that impede today’s global corporations.

Given that it typically takes several years for research projects to yield anything that can be commercialized, moving innovations to development was hardly a top priority when the Beijing lab was formed in 1998. Early on, though, a group was set up to help researchers build demos for showing concept technologies to their Redmond research colleagues and to the business divisions—with two engineers or programmers assigned to each of about a dozen projects.

Dennis Adler, general manager of business development for ATC. Based in Redmond, he is the liaison between the center and Microsoft’s product groups, helping the business divisions understand what advances are emerging from Beijing and the ATC members understand development schedules and constraints. Many times, he says, product groups would have loved to incorporate some cool feature or technology created in one of Microsoft’s research labs but just didn’t have the staff to devote to it. “There are tech transfers that haven’t happened because of it,” he says. “So ATC was set up as a way to help close that gap. It’s all about lowering the impedance.”

Microsoft officials say they know of nothing else like the Advanced Tech­nology Center either inside their company or outside it. “We just invented it,” says Adler. At least in Beijing, an organization like the center wasn’t even thinkable until a few years ago, and its creation shows the benefits of constantly adapting operations as conditions change.

Can individuals, especially scientists and engineers be more creative.  According to the following it is possible. 

Creativity & Innovation in Science & Technology

How can I be creative and innovative in the field of science & technology?

At first it may seem tricky for some people to mix the rigorous, structure world of some scientific disciplines, and the creative world. However, with an open mind it is relatively easy to start looking and thinking in a more creative way, which when put into the scientific world can provide exceptional results.

When you look at the growth in most areas of science and technology, you will find the main advances have been associated with creative thinking followed by innovation to turn those ideas into reality. The precise concepts of creativity and innovation we can support you with.

Discussion Items Re Globalization

Posted by Tim Janis:

CREATIVITY EXAMPLES
BASIC POSITION

• How can a corporation evolve to a humanistic, creative organization and survive in today’s global market?
• What if it doesn’t evolve?
• Can all workers become more creative?  With what incentives?

ALTERNATIVE THOUGHTS

• What about technology as the primary driver of future corporations? Workers?

o    See for example “Globalization of Technology: International Perspectives” - Proceedings of the Sixth Convocation of The Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences; Janet H. Muroyama and H. Guyford, Editors – National Academy Press Web site here

o    According  to Ross, (Ross, David P. (1993). Family Security in Insecure Times. National Forum on Family Security, Canadian Council on Social Development) - Technology and globalization go hand-in-hand. Globalization unleashes technology, which in turn drives firms to plan production and sales on a global basis. Technology changes the work we do and in nearly all cases, the jobs created by it demand more education and training. It also changes the way business operates by transforming relationships between suppliers, producers, retailers and customers.  This opens the discussion of a unit entitled “Innovations in Technology and Globalization: Introduction to the Information Era in the on-line report  “Technology and Making Career Sense of Labour Market Information. “ By Elaine O'Reilly, Algonquin College and Diane Alfred, Human Resources Development Canada Web site here

• What about knowledge?  Is knowledge the real capital of the future?  If so will the creative corporation be able to manage it in a global environment?

• o    Paul Grogan, CEO of the Boston Foundation, summed it up succinctly by saying that the United States needs to develop and nurture its human capital ''to succeed in a competitive global environment that values knowledge and ideas above everything else."  Taken from The globalization of knowledge - By Zorica Pantic  April 5, 2006, The Boston Globe. 

Creativity Against Adverse Effects of Globalisation

Guy Cloutier has made his Position Paper for the Globalisation Debate at TII's Annual Conference (Topic introduced elsehwere on this blog earlier):

The emerging world economy is bringing with it new challenges like low-wage economies and staying ahead in this ever changing environment means being able to anticipate as well as incorporate innovation and creativity.

To conquer these challenges, both the human and the organization will have to recognize, understand, then deal with the dependencies that are presently hindering their growth and preventing them from realizing their aspirations.  Survival will require that they develop an innovative and evolutionary approach that focuses on prevention rather than reaction.  This “evolution” will give rise to a new awareness which recognizes the Human and the Organization as a sum far greater than its parts.

To this end, entrepreneur and speaker Guy Cloutier sees those challenges as a time when human beings will finally regain the power to decide what is best for them by realizing that they hold the essential elements for their personal autonomy.  As it now stands, we are victims of various control systems which tend to denature us, numbing any sense of our true reason for being.  The evolutionary organization of the future will realize this as counter-productive, leading it to place humans first…ahead of finance and technology as the need for personal self-fulfilment must be satisfied if a collective well-being is to be achieved.

Many organizations view the competition or “the low-wage economies” as a threat and have unwittingly placed all their hope on the cutting edge of technology to avoid being outpaced in their market.  Unfortunately, the supposed solution means a massive acquisition of technology at enormous costs or off-shore subcontracting in the hopes of reducing production costs and keeping the industry alive. What are the real costs and impacts of these decisions?  The organization must deal with an ever-increasing financial burden.  The employees and managers are in a quandary; their job security is in question, they are reluctant to change and have lost motivation.  Are there other solutions?  One possibility would be for upper management to acknowledge its most creative individuals who have certainly been waiting for this moment to put their latent potential to use.  They will now be in a perfect position to bring technical, scientific and human improvements to the company’s development.

The following chart is a comparative table illustrating the advantages of creativity over high technology or off-shore subcontracting.

View this photo

A dynamic and humane business will attract members by valuing their creativity instead of ignoring it for the sake of short-term gain.  This acknowledgement of human creativity can only strengthen long-term goals and develop the organization’s autonomy and freedom.

Human creativity is the heart of the evolutionary organization

 

The innovative Chinese automaker

Another notch in the belt of the BRIC! This is a good example of how Globalization links with Technology (Transfer) and Regional Foresight! A lesson to both here and there..(Comment by Max)

The innovative Chinese automaker: "

This has to be a source of consternation for any American company sharing its innovation & design expertise with business partners in China: the Wall Street Journal (link via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) reports that Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., a long-time partner of GM and Volkswagen in China, plans to go it alone and produce a luxury four-door sedan - all by itself - for the Chinese market. The new sedan will compete head-to-head with rival offerings from GM in China and there are even plans in the works to start exporting the Chinese-made and Chinese-designed car to Europe sometime in 2007:

'For years, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., a government-owned behemoth, has worked side by side with General Motors Corp. and Volkswagen AG on world-class assembly lines to build cars for the Chinese market. Now, the giant auto maker is getting ready to use the technical expertise and experience it has gained from these partnerships -- which turn out hundreds of thousands of Buicks and Chevys as well as VW Santanas and Passats a year -- to make its own high-end sedan.

Shanghai Automotive's shift from an ally of its foreign partners to a potentially dangerous rival is a sign of sweeping changes ahead for auto makers in the fast-growing China market, which has become an increasingly important source of sales and profits for U.S. and European auto companies. Prodded by Chinese economic planners, large state-run companies that have joint ventures with other foreign manufacturers, from Ford Motor Co. of the U.S. to Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp. and South Korea's Kia Motors Corp., are also moving to develop and sell more vehicles under their own brand names. The push comes amid a broader questioning of the role that foreign companies and brands should play in China's economy.'

A consultant for the automobile industry rings the alarm bell: 'This is a watershed in the development of the auto industry in China. The Chinese formed joint ventures for one purpose: to learn how to do it themselves one day. That day is here.'

So that's what happens - a big American company sends jobs and R&D know-how overseas in the hopes of expanding global market share, and it winds up with an ungrateful partner willing to bolt at the first opportunity? For GM, already beset by gargantuan financial woes, this has to sting. If nothing else, the decision by Shanghai Automotive means that the GM board won't be able to use the 'our cars don't sell in America, but we're doing real well in China' excuse anymore. In a prepared statement, GM tried to put a positive spin on the development, but we all know the company is smiling through gritted teeth: 'GM understands Shanghai Automotive's desire for further growth and is confident SAIC recognizes that the success of both companies in the China market is closely linked to the success of our joint ventures.'

More details about the decision by Shanghai Automotive to head off on its own can be found at CNN/Money. Details about Shanghai Automotive (not exactly a household word here in America) are also up at Wikipedia.

Tags: China  auto  GM  ShanghaiAutomotive  innovation  design

[image: AutoBlog]

"

(Via Business Innovation 2005.)

The link between Globalisation Innovation and Sustainability

Link: Innovation / Technology - Overview (WBCSD).

Below you'll find a quote from WBCSD's homepage (World Business Council for Sustainable Development". Some years ago,at TII's Conference in Budapest, we discussed Innovation and Sustainability, and I for one argue that business is ready and willing. In order to move, we need movement in civil society (consumers must start demanding sustainable solutions) and in government (create incentives for business laggards and consumers to move).

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) brings together   some 180 international companies in a shared commitment to sustainable development   through economic growth, ecological balance and social progress. Our members   are drawn from more than 30 countries and 20 major industrial sectors. We also   benefit from a global network of 50+ national and regional business councils   and partner organizations.

Our mission is to provide business leadership as a catalyst   for change toward sustainable development, and to support the business license   to operate, innovate and grow in a world increasingly shaped by sustainable   development issues.

This sounds much in line with the Millenium goals. This is how WBCSD's secretariat describes the link between innovation and sustainability

Innovation is the only way to meet the needs of a burgeoning population and a growing economy without causing unacceptable environmental damage. We must produce more energy - but with lower carbon intensity and more food - but not in ways that spread deserts and waste water.

As the main source and user of technology, business clearly has a leading role to play in meeting this challenge. Developments in such areas as waste recycling, nanotechnology, information technology, biotechnology, and alternative energy can contribute markedly to sustainability.

Sustainability requires new thinking across the spectrum of human endeavor, not merely among scientists and technologists. Economic, social, and institutional innovations must keep pace with technological innovations if greener technologies are to come into their own. Inventing new car engines will not by itself transform car transport for instance. Wide acceptance of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles will require major changes in the fuel infrastructure.

The question for us, put slightly differently: if the market is not the perfect mechanism for global change, and if there are no effective global governance actors (sorry UNESCO!) to stand in for the market, what will move things?

Foresight at TII Annual Conference

Foresight Theme
Workshop Topic 5 :   Customising products for future markets

Speaker: Frank Ruff, Daimler Chrysler Title: The crisis of the enhancement logic
Facilitator: Bruno Woeran, Danube Reporter:    To be decided 

This workshop will discuss the forces which are likely to influence future markets and economic conditions and how this will influence customer demand for products and services.  The speaker works within the foresight research division of Daimler Chysler, based in Berlin and responsible for the “Smart Car” and other innovations in the automotive industry.

1. Current situation mass production of standard products 2. What we want successful, long term strategies 3. How we achieve it researching future markets, scenario planning, producing goods with more cultural and symbolic appeal  etc

Workshop Topic  6 :  Foresight and Regional Development
Speaker: Christian Svanfeldt, European Commission Title: Regional Blueprints for development

Facilitator: Guido Giebens, Viisiteam Reporter:    Herman Deroost, TimetoMarket 

This workshop will discuss how regions can use foresight techniques to create more robust long term strategies. Understanding the global drivers affecting key areas in the regional economy is essential in order to prioritise public sector intervention and private sector action. Foresight is a high priority for the EU and the speaker has played a major part in defining strategies for different types of region eg, industrial transition, agricultural decline, trans-border etc.   

1. Current situation conventional planning processes 2. What we want wealth creation and EU social integration 3. How we achieve it better informed policy making, flexible skills, forward looking businesses & services

Globalisation debate at TII 2006 Annual Conference

More details at tii.org
Globalisation Theme
Workshop 3:  Technology for International Development Speaker: Tony Marjoram, UNESCO Title: Eight goals for reducing global inequality
Facilitator: Max Nielsen, MaxInno Reporter:    To be decided
This workshop will consider how innovation and technology can help solve worldwide problems such as poverty reduction, sustainability, fair trade, labour mobility and technology transfer. The speaker is an expert on international development and a member of the UN Task Force that produced the recent report on Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) to be achieved by 2015.
1. Current  situation:    poverty, insecurity, degredation etc
2. What we want:    fairer, more effective global economy
3. How we achieve it:    methods, partnerships and resources.

Workshop 4 :  Innovation and Global Competitiveness
Speaker: Guy Cloutier, Hicom International Title: Creativity – the Power of the Future
Facilitator: Tim Janis
Reporter:     To be decided 
This workshop will consider how innovation and creativity can be used as a strategy to offset the challenge of low-wage economies by gaining competitive edge from unique products and services. The speaker is well known for his publications, ‘Power of Future’ and ‘The Golden Rules’ and was the founder of an international trading house exporting inventions around the world.
1. Current situation:    losing out to low wage economies
2. What we want:    to lead the world in new ideas   
3. How we achieve it:    by stimulating innovation/creativity, developing unique products etc. 

TII Annual Conference 2006: Technology Theme

We now have more information on the workshops at the TII 2006 ANNUAL CONFERENCE, visit TII 2006 ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Technology Theme Workshop 1:  Managing Technology and Intellectual Property Speaker: Andrea di Anselmo, META Consulting Title: To be decided Facilitator: Thomas Gering , Intellectual Asset Management Corporation Reporter: To be decided  This workshop will exchange best practice about technology exploitation including the specialist skills are needed for technical, financial and market due diligence. How is it best to protect IPR and advise those taking part in spin-outs and joint ventures? The speaker is director of a high-tech consultancy in Umbria whilst the facilitator formerly ran a company for commercialising research outputs from the Fraunhofer network in Germany.    1. Current situation: Not enough high tech SMEs 2. What we want: Increased IPR production/conversion 3. How we achieve it: Specialist skills, clusters, supply chains  
Workshop Topic 2 :   Impact of R&D on the Regional Economy Speaker: Leda Bologni, Aster Title: Implementing the Knowledge Economy Facilitator:Hans Rijckenberg, Sapience Reporter: To be decided  This workshop will discuss the critical connection between R&D and regional competitiveness.  How can Regional Economic and Innovation strategies help to implement the knowledge economy. What interventions work and how will this help EU enlargement process. The speaker works for a major economic development agency in Bologna and is leading a large EU funded project, called ERAIN, on the subject. 1. Current situation Low investment in R&D in EU regions 2. What we want A knowledge based regional economy 3. How we achieve it Market orientation of R&D, benchmarking funding for university-industry projects and supporting new jobs in R

The Global Innovation Outlook: What is Going On Out There?

Irving Wladawsky-Berger of IBM gives a good impression of how IBM and other corporate businesses support the Global Innovation Outlook as both a Foresight exercise AND a strategy to implement global development.

The Global Innovation Outlook: What is Going On Out There?: "

IBM, as you would expect from a company of our size, has long conducted in-house forecasting to determine the emerging trends in technology and business that should shape our strategies.  In 2004, as the focus on innovation started to take shape, we realized that our approach to forecasting and strategy itself had to change.  Increasingly, innovation was occurring at the intersection of technology, business and society, so one had to step back and take a more holistic approach to discern emerging trends in these three dimensions instead of just looking at them individually.   

Thus was born the Global Innovation Outlook (GIO).  We made the decision to sit together with thought leaders from businesses of all sizes, academia, government, public interest groups, the venture capital community and other key constituencies to collectively peer into the future and identify major trends, insights and opportunities.  In order to focus the discussions, we picked three broad societal themes for discussion.  In addition, we tried to surface insights that applied to all three focus areas and spanned various disciplines and industries.

GIO 1.0 took place during 2004 with ten 'deep dive' sessions held in New York, Shanghai, Washington and Zurich, involving 200+ participants from 24 different countries, more than half of them IBM ecosystem partners from 96 different organizations.  The focus areas for GIO 1.0 were healthcare, government and its citizens, and the business of work and life.  The detailed findings in each focus area are described in the GIO 1.0 report, but let me just briefly mention the three broad themes that ran across them. 

First was the need for standard ways of exchanging information within and across organizations, which was viewed by GIO participants on a par with speaking the same language.  Standards were identified as requisite to unlocking new capabilities, and many cited a lack of standards as 'a major reason for systemic inefficiencies, escalating costs and general industry incoherence and confusion.'  Next was the need for more open collaboration among ecosystem members, including parties not used to working with each other because they compete or come from different disciplines or industries.  The final broad area identified in GIO 1.0 was the primacy of the individual as a focal point for innovation.  The report said: 'Where much innovation in the last century grew out of the adoption of mass production, innovation in the 21st century will primarily be built on the infrastructure of the individual.'

The 15 'deep dives' of GIO 2.0 took place in 2005 and 2006 and its findings were released at an event in New York last week.  GIO 2.0 gathered 248 thought leaders from 33 countries representing 178 organizations, meeting in Beijing, New Delhi, Sao Paulo, Zurich and San Francisco. Discussions focused on three topics:  the future of the enterprise, energy and the environment, and transportation and mobility.  A brief summary of the findings in each area can be found here and the full findings are presented in the GIO 2.0 report. 

As in the first GIO, we found some very interesting broad patterns.  Let me talk about one in particular.  While GIO 1.0 focused on the role of individuals in driving innovation, this time the discussions revealed that those individuals are not acting in isolation.  'Their power comes largely from their ability to tap into and sometimes transform a larger network of people and ideas.'  This is something I have personally discovered in the last year with the rise of social networks, enabled by the Internet and related tools and platforms which are making it possible for people to connect and work together in unprecedented ways within and outside the boundaries of organizations and countries.  GIO participants observed that increasingly the organizing principle for work is no longer the enterprise but the endeavor and that it may soon be time to redefine what we mean by enterprise, employer and employee, as looser aggregations of collaborators form and disband opportunity by opportunity.  In GIO discussions people kept coming back to the idea that in such a socially networked, collaborative world, reputation capital and trust are critical to the proper working of businesses and communities, something with which I wholeheartedly concur. 

A highlight of the New York event last week was a panel on the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century enterprise.  A major topic of discussion was the kinds of leadership qualities that will thrive in the highly distributed, virtual work environments we are already seeing in business – environments that everyone agrees will increasingly be the norm as our world becomes more open, global and collaborative and the underlying communications technologies, platforms and tools keep getting better. There was a consensus that the classic hierarchical organizations of the Industrial Age will just not work in this new environment, and that universities need to adjust their curricula to better prepare students for the 21st century workplace.  Really  fascinating was a discussion of the world of multi-player, online games and the clues it provides to the kinds of skills and training tools one will need in dynamic virtual work environments, as well as the kinds of approaches that are working so effectively in self-organizing, open communities such as those collecting around open source software development and Wikipedia.

We live in an increasingly fast-changing, unpredictable world – a world in which forecasting and planning as practiced in the past will no longer work for businesses or nations.  To understand what might be going on out there, you need to be constantly gathering and analyzing information.  But even more important, you need more than ever to engage with people, so that from their collective wisdom you can begin to discern insights as to what might be going on and what you should do about it.  That is what makes the GIO conversations and findings so compelling.      

"

(Via Irving Wladawsky-Berger.)

Product Development in Global Collaborative Environment

This article clearly demonstrates how Global companies use global collaboration as a core strategy.

Product Development in Global Collaborative Environment: "

In current global business environment, most of the enterprises are searching for places that can produce and develop each component or deliverable cost effectively and most efficiently.

The Integrated product development in a global collaborative environment is a challenge that is faced by most of the enterprises that are situated around different places in the world. Each unit has to succeed the most of its capabilities.

The presentation by Dassault Systemes although it is focused on specific industry example provides an understanding how the Integrated product development in a global collaborative environment is working.

Related Web Resouces

Watch the demonstration fot the Industry Solutions for Electrical and Electronics.

Dassault Systemes

"

(Via URENIO Portal: Innovation, Environments of Innovation, Intelligent Cities and Regions.)

Innovation: "Made in China"

This article highlights Innovation Made in China from a "western" oberserver. The source is the businessinsider.

Innovation: "Made in China": "

We've been sounding the alarm bells on this one for awhile: China is really stepping up its emphasis on innovation, unveiling further details of its plans to boost spending on science and technology by 20% this year. Without a doubt, the Chinese government is making it a top priority to enhance the country's innovation capability, seeking in the process to overcome the stigma of the 'Made in China' label. Innovation is more than just a slogan - it's a path to economic prosperity and growth for Chinese manufacturers: 'A Chinese DVD player exporter can make only 1 dollar from each machine priced at 32 dollars, while 20 dollars goes to the foreign patent owners. That's 60 percent of the total value. And according to the Minister of Commerce, Bo Xilai, China must export 100 million shoes or 800 million shirts in exchange for the value of one Boeing aircraft.'

At a recent seminar in Beijing, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz expained the significance of China's new innovation strategy:

'The 11th Five Year plan makes an important step forward. It's a major change, that is, it seeks to establish a basis of what it calls independent innovation. In the past, China has been basically borrowing ideas, trying to close the gap. What it recognizes that enormous amount of the rents that exist in the world associate with knowledge rents, the returns to the control of knowledge. So if China's income is going to be raised, it has to create a basis of independent innovation.'

Tags: China  innovation  JosephStiglitz

[image: 'Man Overboard' by hornbuckle]

"

(Via Business Innovation 2005.)

Business clusters boost regional innovation

In preparation of the TII Annual Conference 2006, one topic is The role of regions. Here is a recent European observation from the European Commission. On the final day of the European Business Summit (EBS), the Commission's DG for Enterprise and Industry organised a speaking lunch entitled, 'European innovation clusters: turning local strengths into global achievements', designed to explore how business clusters have been a positive force for regional innovation. The speakers included Jozef Cornu, member of the Aho group which published the recent report into European innovation, Christian Ketels, an expert on clusters from Harvard business school, Carmen Becerril, director of Acciona Energía, responsible for stimulating a business cluster in northern Spain, and Hannes Leo from Sectoral Innovation Watch.

Business clusters boost regional innovation: ""

(Via CORDIS News.)

Eight Goals for reducing global inequality

Posted by: Ernst Max Nielsen
The TII 2006 Annual Conference (follow the Category link elsewhere on this site) hosts a workshop with Tony Marjoram, UNESCO, as keynote speaker and myself as facilitator. The topic:   Eight goals for reducing global inequality

This workshop will consider how innovation and technology can help solve worldwide problems such as poverty reduction, sustainability, fair trade, labour mobility and technology transfer. The speaker is an expert on international development and a member of the UN Task Force that produced the recent report on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be achieved by 2015.

The presentation is intended as the initial input to the workshop which will extend much further. The task of the facilitator will be to set the wider scope and manage the discussion over a 3.5 hour period. Ideally the workshops will be divided into three distinct sessions each with its own clear outputs.

1.    Where are we now?        - current global situation
2.    Where do we want to be?     - targets, objectives and timescales
3.    How do we get there?        - methods and resources required

If you have  any inputs to this topic, don't hesitate to comment.

NIB Syndrome ?? (Not Invented in BRIC)

This post is written by Ernst Max Nielsen:

The TII 2006 Conference invitation (Tech Transfer in the 21st century ) reads as follows for one of the themes: Production to low-wage economies is a positive influence and should be encouraged. True, false or what can be done?

It's a funny question! Outsourcing to BRIC countries is a fact and in the free economies of the exporting countries, it's unthinkable to intervene in any efficient way. So I'll re-phrase the question from a tech transfer perspective.

For some time now, we have seen (at least in Europe) a view that says: "Fine to send labour-intensive production to BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia,India and China). So much more important is it that we (in the West) build up a competitive edge in the knowledge economy, design matters and other value added contributions to products and services".

The assumption in such views is that BRIC countries are not competitive when it comes to knowledge production, innovation,- as sources of innovation. It's a false view!

If you'll follow the links to articles about BRIC in the Category List on this site, you will see good examples of how and why the NIB thesis is wrong (NIB="Not Invented in BRIC" ;-) It's a fact that BRIC countries are innovators and not just copy-cats.

So the re-phrased questions is: Exporting Production AND Knowledge Production to BRIC is a positive influence. True, false or what can be done?

Let us analyse the question from the "what can be done" perspective! In an European context, we tend to analyze what the impact might be for regions, the SMEs (Small Medium-sized Enterprises), corporations, civil society etc.

From my dealing with business, I see it this way: globalization means that the most competitive actor, wherever located, will win. But it's wrong to focus on Technology only: the key to success is NOT the Technology isolated, but much more the ability to bring customized products and services to given markets. The bottom line is that globalization means a more equitable exchange.

The big question for innovation service providers (including businesses themselves) and policy makers is whether their regions nourish the conditions for such competitive advantages. And if they don't, how then to establish them. Such thinking has led to a whole school of "Cluster thinkers": to promote "Regional Clusters" drawing on some of the original thinking and analyis of Michael Porter.

For the SMEs, this means that they belong (or don't) to such clusters - and they had better start now if they don't. For regional policy makers, they'd better start monitoring their region's competitiveness. And do something if they fall behind.

For consumers and civil society: reduced competitiveness means reduced living standards measured by monetary means.

I shall continue the analysis later in prepartion of the TII 2006 Annual Conference.

China is turning into an R&D powerhouse

This article clearly supports the argument that the BRIC countries are turning into Sources of Innovation, not just cheap labour copy-cats. The article is posted from the following blog: Business Innovation Insider

China is turning into an R&D powerhouse: "

Well, it looks like the 'China is to India as Wal-Mart is to Target' argument is under pressure from the Wall Street Journal. Yesterday, the print version of the paper published a front page article ('Low Costs, Plentiful Talent Make China a Global Magnet for R&D') that strongly suggested that China is passing India in the innovation/creativity sphere. In fact, it looks like China is rapidly turning itself into a global R&D hub that will soon rival anything found in North America or Western Europe.

According to a recent report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the three most frequently cited destinations for R&D expansion are China (#1), the U.S. (#2), and India (#3). What's more, important FORTUNE 500 companies ranging from P&G to IBM to Motorola are expanding their Chinese R&D operations at a rapid clip at the same time that the Chinese government is re-doubling its efforts to encourage home-grown R&D. The Chinese central government has pledged to increase spending on science and technology by nearly 20% this year and is working on a number of tax breaks to encourage private sector R&D.

Currently, China spends about 1.5% of its GDP on R&D, compared to 2.7% for the U.S. However, the near-term goal for the Chinese is to boost that percentage to 2% of GDP by 2010 and 2.5% by 2020. I couldn't find a hyperlink for the story on the WSJ site, but if there's a copy of the newspaper sitting around the office, it's worth a quick read. It looks the Chinese are moving aggressively into areas like nanotech, biotech and genetically modified crops - in addition to more traditional areas (i.e. new grease-fighting laundry detergents, anyone?).

NOTE: If anyone can translate the text of this accompanying chart, I'd be most grateful. It looks like a chart mapping R&D expenditures as a percentage of GDP. I found it via Baidu.com, the 'Chinese Google.'

Tags: China  India  R&D  innovation

[image: Baidu.com]

"

(Via Business Innovation 2005.)

Innovation in the 21st Century

2006 TII Annual Conference “Innovation in the 21st Century” will put the spotlight on three major issues on today’s innovation agenda, namely foresight, technology and globalisation .
These recurring themes will be featured in plenary session presentations by senior policy makers, top industrialists and leading-edge researchers, and will form the basis for in-depth reflection and discussion in the parallel working group sessions.
A point-and-counterpoint debate will likewise focus on the same three themes. Through this two-day programme of researched inputs, discussion and exchange, delegates will receive some rich and varied insights into the innovation challenges of the 21st century.
Members, participants, others are invited to write articles about and/comment on other articles concerned with the topics of the Conference. For instance, you could comment upon the items listed below.
Exemplar topics: View 1: Universities and academic research are now at the heart of regional economic success. True, false or what can be done?
View 2: Exporting production to low-wage economies is a positive influence and should be encouraged. True, false or what can be done?
View 3: Foresight has proved itself as a highly practical technique for increasing competitiveness. True, false or what can be done?

China hikes sci-tech input by 19.2%

China hikes sci-tech input by 19.2%: "Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Sunday in Beijing that the central government will allocate 71.6 billion yuan this year for investment in science and technology, representing an increase of 19.2 percent year-on-year."

(Via People's Daily Online.)

China sets favored taxation policies for knowledge-based

THE CHINESE ARE STILL COMING

China sets favored taxation policies for knowledge-based enterprises: "The Chinese government announced here Sunday that it has set favored taxation policies for the nation's knowledge-based enterprises."

(Via People's Daily Online.)