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What is innovation?
Harold Jarche
In writing almost 100 posts on innovation since 2007, it's time to put the core observations together into a cohesive narrative. Innovation is fifteen different things to fifteen different people. "An innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organisational method in business practices, workplace organisation or external relations." An Innovation Process? MORE
Innovation Workflow Network Process 219
Complex knowledge
Last week I spent several hours each day, for four consecutive days, trying to share complex knowledge. I had my understanding of communities of practice, personal knowledge management, leadership, and innovation that I wanted to share. I was reminded once again of how much time it takes to share complex (implicit) knowledge. To really share complex knowledge takes a willingness to listen as well as the time and space to do so. complexity Learning Wirearchy MORE
Complexity Personal Knowledge Management PKM Knowledge Management 201
Organizational Innovation
Irving Wladawsky-Berger
Almost seventy years ago, Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter popularized the term creative destruction to describe the process of transformation that accompanies disruptive innovation. In Schumpeter's vision of capitalism, innovative entry by entrepreneurs was the force that sustained long-term economic growth, even as it destroyed the value of established companies that enjoyed some degree of monopoly power. MORE
Innovation Company Products Productivity 146
WTF? Complexity.
Outcomes result from the interplay of complex adaptive systems. What's a person to do when complexity turns our clockwork universe on its head? My colleagues at the Internet Time Alliance agree that we need to embrace complexity , not hide from it. Harold Jarche writes, "Few are bored with complex challenges. In October, he's leading a series of one-day executive seminars on Leading Through Complexity: A New Simplicity. MORE
Complexity Review Process Organization 109
Some Puzzling Questions about Innovation in the Digital Economy
This semester I am teaching the innovation half of a course on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at NYU's new Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP). Teaching forces you to take a fresh look at the subjects you are covering, so I find myself revisiting questions I've long been thinking about: What is the essence of innovation in the digital economy and how does it differ from the industrial age innovation of the past two hundred years? MORE
Innovation Questions Industry System 210
Managing in Complexity
As our markets and technologies get more complex, we need new models to get work done. For instance, we know that creative work can yield more innovation, yet our workplaces usually stifle creativity. However, complex systems are not fully knowable, though they can be partially understood through interaction with them. If companies want to remain competitive in the global market, they need to focus on complex and creative work. Complex problems cannot be solved alone. MORE
Complexity Collaboration Patterns Analysis 195
The Science of Innovation
"Innovation - identified by MIT economist and Nobel laureate Robert Solow as the driver of long-term, sustainable economic growth and prosperity - has been a hallmark of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since its inception." Thus starts The MIT Innovation Initiative: Sustaining and Extending a Legacy of Innovation , the preliminary report of a yearlong effort to define the innovation needed to address some of the world's most challenging problems. MORE
Innovation Report Metrics Policies 201
complex networks of trust
What is innovation? — History tells us that innovation is an outcome of a massive collective effort — not just from a narrow group of young white men in California." — Mariana Mazzucato. Only global networks of trust can work on this complex problem. The world is too complex for elites and hierarchies. Democracy Innovationit is not so much about having ideas as it is about connecting and nurturing ideas. MORE
Complexity Network Groups System 130
Complex facilitation
Dave Snowden
My priority today was to get a body of material from various documents and slide sets into the entry for Complex Facilitation. Now some people get complex facilitation but a lot don't. I always have mixed feelings when I finish a Christmas blog series. MORE
Complexity Wiki Patterns Groups 202
Social innovation labs, initial thoughts
For one reason or another I've ended up talking about various social innovation labs in multiple locations over the last couple of weeks and I've got a call on the subject tomorrow. I will expand on that in tomorrow's post as it is a key concept in anthropology-complexity and applies in several application areas not just this. The post Social innovation labs, initial thoughts appeared first on Cognitive Edge. MORE
Innovation Patterns Meeting Journal 192
Making sense of complexity and innovation
Friday's Finds: Gall's Law: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. " @Cory_Foy – "Innovation comes from slack. " Deconstructing Innovation : a complex concept made simple; by @ShaunCoffey. Innovation is continuous. complexity Friday''s Finds Innovation MORE
Complexity Innovation Knowledge Management Case Study 184
Are Innovation and R&D Yielding Decreasing Returns?
Given the pace of technological change, we tend to think of our age as the most innovative ever. These innovations, first developed in the late 19th and early 20th century, have long been transforming the lives of billions. Innovation may be hitting a wall of diminishing returns. In a 2009 paper, The Burden of Knowledge and the 'Death of the Renaissance Man': Is Innovation Getting Harder? Innovators can compensate for this increasing knowledge burden in two key ways. MORE
Innovation Products Productivity Research 164
Anthro-complexity & aesthetics
That was the first time I used the term anthro-complexity in writing and I stated that it was the front runner to name a field. Previously I had used social and cognitive complexity but the former had been used elsewhere and the latter was not complete enough. MORE
Complexity Features Project System 130
Coherence in complexity
Anecdote reports that John Kotter, leadership guru , is accepting that methods like his 8-step process for leading change may not be effective in the face of complexity. I have been discussing the potential of communities of practice in fostering innovation for some time here. In my last post I wrote that in an increasingly complex workplace, many of the old models are no longer useful, referring more specifically to workplace learning. MORE
Complexity Organization Collaboration Network 208
Managing Complex, Disruptive Innovations - Some Lessons Learned
Over the past twenty years I have been involved in a number of initiatives dealing with disruptive innovations. One of the major challenges in managing disruptive innovations is that even if you are sure that change is inevitable and you must therefore embrace the new ideas and technologies, you really don't know what lies ahead. You don't really know how quickly the new innovations will be adopted in the marketplace. MORE
Complexity Innovation Company Products 182
Innovation as a Journey into the Future
I recently read an excellent innovation report, - Strategic Orientations for Innovation: Chile in the 2025 Horizon. The document was developed by Chile's National Innovation Council for Competitiveness (CNIC) , a public-private organization charged with providing advice to the President of the Republic on policies that will strengthen innovation and competitiveness in the country. This was like no innovation document I've read. MORE
Innovation Issues Report Products 207
innovation in perpetual beta
The perpetual beta working model tries to show how work and learning are related as we negotiate various types of networks to get new ideas, test them out, and innovate how we work. A 2005 article on Network Structure & Innovation by Steve Borgatti defined two types of innovation networks based on the need for either individual creativity or interactive creativity. In our work teams we can focus on incremental innovation, to get better at what we already do. MORE
Innovation Social Network Network Skills 155
No cookie cutters for complexity
Five years later, Dave Snowden makes a similar observation, sparked by a KPMG marketing brochure on "cutting through complexity" Dave concludes: If a consultancy firm really wants to help their clients they they should support them in living with complexity, riding its potential, avoiding reductionist approaches, engaging customer and staff in a sensing network. Complex problems require require different thinking. Ability to innovate faster. complexity MORE
Complexity Web 2.0 Case Study Products 219
The Current State of Open Innovation
In January, UC Berkeley professor Henry Chesbrough published Open Innovation Results : Going Beyond the Hype and Getting Down to Business, his fourth book on innovation in the last two decades. Chesbrough is adjunct professor and faculty director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. He's credited with coining the term open innovation in his 2003 book of the same title. Business model innovation. MORE
Innovation Open Source Products Productivity 132
self-managing for complexity
How can they most effectively learn the skills required in the complex domain? How can we prepare people to work in complex, and not highly ordered, work environments in which most problems are exceptions from which some emergent solutions can be continuously developed, learned, and shared? If we want to help people deal with complex problems and environments then they need to learn and practice in these. Complexity MORE
Complexity Class Education Patterns 160
bias thwarts innovation
The network era workplace requires collaboration and cooperation because complex problems cannot be solved alone. In order to develop the necessary emergent practices to deal with complexity we therefore need to cultivate the diversity and autonomy of each worker. Innovation requires diversity. Innovation is not so much about having ideas as it is about making connections. Innovation is in a state of perpetual beta. Innovation Leadership SocialLearning MORE
Innovation Network Analysis Journal 165
Disruptive Innovations and Large Companies
The subject of my seminar was Managing Technology-based Disruptive Innovations. Given my long career at IBM, as well as my more recent involvement with Citi, it is not surprising that I am particularly interested in entrepreneurship and innovation in large companies. Its lead article defined the term as: "somebody who offers an innovative solution to a (frequently unrecognised) problem. Startups are generally organized around one central innovation. MORE
Company Innovation Class Products 215
Complex Systems and the "Rashomon Effect"
But part of my fascination with the subject is that I often ask myself similar questions when thinking about the equally mysterious world of highly complex emergent systems, that is, systems where the whole can at times be quite different from the sum of their parts. The reasons meteorologists give forecasts based on probabilities is because, given how complex weather systems are, they in fact don't have access to all relevant information. MORE
Complexity System Data Knowledge Base 182
Open Innovation 2.0
I recently read Twelve Principles for Open Innovation 2.0 , an article published last year in Nature by Martin Curley. Curley, - who's long been involved with innovation in both his business and academic positions, - nicely summarized its evolution over the past several decades, first from closed to open innovation, and now to what he calls open innovation 2.0. Let me discuss each of these phases of innovation. Closed Innovation. Open Innovation. MORE
Innovation Products Productivity Adoption 148
Complexity and Public Administration
Some 10 years ago now when I first became interested in how complexity science might be used in public administration there was a body of thinking but relatively few practical examples of applications. This has brought attention to approaches informed by complexity science for working with intractable problems as well as a way to square the circle of making localization workable and relevant. So what is applying complexity thinking to public policy really all about? MORE
Complexity Policies Analysis Patterns 157
The Blockchain and Open Innovation
Transformational innovations don't always play out as originally envisioned. In addition to developing standards and organizing promotional activities, these various organization make available open source implementations of their software releases, thus encouraging collaborative, open innovation. It's too early to know if the blockchain will become another major transformational innovation. Once in the marketplace, they seem to acquire a life of their own. MORE
Innovation Open Source Press Release Industry 156
Scale and Complex Systemic Innovation
The column addresses a fundamental question that those studying innovation have been wrestling with for years: "Are big companies the best catalysts of innovation, or are small ones better?" The column is based on a recent study - Scale and Innovation in Today's Economy - by Michael Mandel , chief economic strategist of the Progressive Policy Institute. As a result, there are reasons to believe that scale may be a plus for innovation in today's economy, not a minus." MORE
System Complexity Innovation Company 162
immunize for complexity
It comes from the 1990's but is still in use to describe the complex and chaotic world of business, politics, and technology. Complexity. Innovation. Velocity and agility can be improved at the organizational level with frameworks, such as Niels Pflaeging's Organize for Complexity approach. On the other hand, creativity and innovation emerge from organizations that are open, diverse, and have dynamic tensions that promote experimentation. Complexit MORE
Complexity Network Innovation Organization 120
hold space for complex problems
Globalisation (think continued bubbles and crashes, a regional underclass, the world becoming urban, frugal innovation). Every one of the major challenges facing us is complex. But our organizations are not designed for complexity. Our education institutions do not teach an understanding of complexity. Our workplace training does not factor in complexity. While not all of our problems are complex, the simpler issues are being dealt with. MORE
Complexity Price Patterns Policies 205
The "Recombinant" Nature of Digital Innovations
Customer self-service is an excellent example of recombinant innovations , which UC Davis professor Andrew Hargadon defines as innovations that "rather than chasing whole new ideas, [are] focused on recombining old ideas in new ways." The basic premise behind these kinds of innovations is the search for breakthrough ideas that might lead to the creation of new products, markets and industries based on novel combinations of existing technologies . MORE
Innovation Issues Data Products 193
complexity rules
We live and work in a complex system. Simple, traditional linear models do not work in complex systems. " — How Netflix Finds Innovation on the Edge 2020. " — Aeon: Complex Systems Science 2020. Complexity MORE
Complexity Metrics Analytics System 193
The Complex Nature of Cloud-based Innovation
I find it helpful to look at cloud along two key dimensions: as a technology to improve IT productivity, and as a platform for enabling business innovation. Only one company in six viewed cloud as a way of fostering business innovation. But, for many companies, the use of cloud to foster business innovation and growth remains elusive. Investments need to go into innovation and disruptive business models. Cloud-based innovation is a major part of that evolution. MORE
Complexity Innovation Industry Comparison 169
Complexity, design and aesthetics
Last year we looked at complexity in generation, in 2018 we are both expanding the number (from one to three) and focusing in particular areas. The first this year is coming up shortly in Whistler and will focus on creating a complex systems approach to how we handle design and innovation in large organisations, the role of aesthetics and creativity in human systems. The post Complexity, design and aesthetics appeared first on Cognitive Edge. MORE
Complexity Design Template Templates 143
Market-facing Innovation Labs
But, they are being reincarnated in our 21st century information economy as market-facing innovation labs, with significantly different and broader scopes than those of the original industrial economy research labs. Since we did not have a good understanding of what it was that they actually did, let alone what their problems were, we could not tell them how our innovative ideas could be of help to them in their work. MORE
Innovation Research Industry Products 155
Disruptive Innovation Revisited
The recent New Yorker article, - The Disruption Machine: What the gospel of innovation gets wrong , - by Harvard history professor Jill Lepore , has led to a flurry of opinions on disruptive innovation. The New Yorker described the article as "Rethinking the innovation craze." Others called it an "absolutely devastating takedown of disruptive innovation," a concept that Lepore said is a "competitive strategy for an age seized by terror." MORE
Innovation Metrics Company Case Study 214
The MIT Inclusive Innovation Competition
As i ts website explains: "While digital technologies are rapidly transforming both business practices and societies and are integral to the innovation-driven economies of the future, they are also the core driver of the great economic paradox of our time. How can we accelerate the transformation of institutions, organizations, and human skills to keep up with the quickening pace of digital innovation? MORE
Innovation Skills Products Productivity 153
improvise for complexity
The premise of A Useful Idea is that improvisation acting principles can help with the creation of something new, and perhaps innovative. The five principles are: Assume complexity and only control process choices, not the outcome. ComplexityNourish 'ensemble' to let go of safety and dive in with openness [ improv activities help]. Design skillful rehearsals & adaptive performances [ perpetual beta ]. Tap into source [ half-baked ideas ]. MORE
Complexity Skills Questions Video 149
Big Data, Complex Systems and Quantum Mechanics
In thinking about this question over the last few years, I started to notice that a number of subtle, non-intuitive concepts that I learned many years ago as a physics student seem to apply to the world of big data and information-based predictions in highly complex systems. So is the world of highly complex systems , especially those systems whose components and interrelationships are themselves quite complex, as is the case with systems biology and evolution. . MORE
Complexity System Data Statistics 204
learning with complexity
Two technologies — machine learning , and the internet — are changing our understanding of the world by showing that we really cannot understand large scale complexity. "We don't use these technologies because they are huge, connected, and complex. Sensemaking is becoming a critical skill in our complex world. Working in complexity requires constant sensemaking, connecting outside the organization with the work being done inside. Complexity MORE
Complexity Workflow Statistics Skills 181
Networks and Complexity (1)
Complex human systems, such as organizations, communities or economies, go hand-in-hand with networks. Networks can reveal various structures and various layers in complex systems – the connections (links) between the components are key. MORE
Complexity Network Diagrams Patterns 278
Innovation and National Security in the 21st Century
"Countries that can harness the current wave of innovation, mitigate its potential disruptions, and capitalize on its transformative power will gain economic and military advantages over potential rivals," was the top finding of the Innovation and National Security Task Force which was commissioned by the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) to assess the current state of US technological innovation. US decades-old leadership in innovation and R&D is now at risk. MORE
Security Innovation Data Policies 121
Disruptive innovation was first introduced by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen in a 1995 Harvard Business Review (HBR) paper co-written with Joseph Bower. The concept was further elaborated and popularized in Christensen's 1997 bestseller The Innovator's Dilemma , and in the articles and books he's written or co-authored since then. 20 years after its introduction, Christensen has revisited his original concept in What is Disruptive Innovation? , MORE
Innovation Price Industry Company 154
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My priority today was to get a body of material from various documents and slide sets into the entry for Complex Facilitation. Now some people get complex facilitation but a lot don't. I always have mixed feelings when I finish a Christmas blog series.
Complexity 202
Complex human systems, such as organizations, communities or economies, go hand-in-hand with networks. Networks can reveal various structures and various layers in complex systems – the connections (links) between the components are key.
Dan Pontefract
Xyleme
Jane Hart
We live and work in a complex system. Simple, traditional linear models do not work in complex systems. " — How Netflix Finds Innovation on the Edge 2020. " — Aeon: Complex Systems Science 2020. Complexity
That was the first time I used the term anthro-complexity in writing and I stated that it was the front runner to name a field. Previously I had used social and cognitive complexity but the former had been used elsewhere and the latter was not complete enough.
I find it helpful to look at cloud along two key dimensions: as a technology to improve IT productivity, and as a platform for enabling business innovation. Only one company in six viewed cloud as a way of fostering business innovation. But, for many companies, the use of cloud to foster business innovation and growth remains elusive. Investments need to go into innovation and disruptive business models. Cloud-based innovation is a major part of that evolution.
The column addresses a fundamental question that those studying innovation have been wrestling with for years: "Are big companies the best catalysts of innovation, or are small ones better?" The column is based on a recent study - Scale and Innovation in Today's Economy - by Michael Mandel , chief economic strategist of the Progressive Policy Institute. As a result, there are reasons to believe that scale may be a plus for innovation in today's economy, not a minus."
Over the past twenty years I have been involved in a number of initiatives dealing with disruptive innovations. One of the major challenges in managing disruptive innovations is that even if you are sure that change is inevitable and you must therefore embrace the new ideas and technologies, you really don't know what lies ahead. You don't really know how quickly the new innovations will be adopted in the marketplace.
Two technologies — machine learning , and the internet — are changing our understanding of the world by showing that we really cannot understand large scale complexity. "We don't use these technologies because they are huge, connected, and complex. Sensemaking is becoming a critical skill in our complex world. Working in complexity requires constant sensemaking, connecting outside the organization with the work being done inside. Complexity
In writing almost 100 posts on innovation since 2007, it's time to put the core observations together into a cohesive narrative. Innovation is fifteen different things to fifteen different people. "An innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organisational method in business practices, workplace organisation or external relations." An Innovation Process?
Friday's Finds: Gall's Law: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. " @Cory_Foy – "Innovation comes from slack. " Deconstructing Innovation : a complex concept made simple; by @ShaunCoffey. Innovation is continuous. complexity Friday''s Finds Innovation
What is innovation? — History tells us that innovation is an outcome of a massive collective effort — not just from a narrow group of young white men in California." — Mariana Mazzucato. Only global networks of trust can work on this complex problem. The world is too complex for elites and hierarchies. Democracy Innovationit is not so much about having ideas as it is about connecting and nurturing ideas.
Last year we looked at complexity in generation, in 2018 we are both expanding the number (from one to three) and focusing in particular areas. The first this year is coming up shortly in Whistler and will focus on creating a complex systems approach to how we handle design and innovation in large organisations, the role of aesthetics and creativity in human systems. The post Complexity, design and aesthetics appeared first on Cognitive Edge.
Last week I spent several hours each day, for four consecutive days, trying to share complex knowledge. I had my understanding of communities of practice, personal knowledge management, leadership, and innovation that I wanted to share. I was reminded once again of how much time it takes to share complex (implicit) knowledge. To really share complex knowledge takes a willingness to listen as well as the time and space to do so. complexity Learning Wirearchy
"Innovation - identified by MIT economist and Nobel laureate Robert Solow as the driver of long-term, sustainable economic growth and prosperity - has been a hallmark of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since its inception." Thus starts The MIT Innovation Initiative: Sustaining and Extending a Legacy of Innovation , the preliminary report of a yearlong effort to define the innovation needed to address some of the world's most challenging problems.
I recently read Twelve Principles for Open Innovation 2.0 , an article published last year in Nature by Martin Curley. Curley, - who's long been involved with innovation in both his business and academic positions, - nicely summarized its evolution over the past several decades, first from closed to open innovation, and now to what he calls open innovation 2.0. Let me discuss each of these phases of innovation. Closed Innovation. Open Innovation.
The recent New Yorker article, - The Disruption Machine: What the gospel of innovation gets wrong , - by Harvard history professor Jill Lepore , has led to a flurry of opinions on disruptive innovation. The New Yorker described the article as "Rethinking the innovation craze." Others called it an "absolutely devastating takedown of disruptive innovation," a concept that Lepore said is a "competitive strategy for an age seized by terror."
In January, UC Berkeley professor Henry Chesbrough published Open Innovation Results : Going Beyond the Hype and Getting Down to Business, his fourth book on innovation in the last two decades. Chesbrough is adjunct professor and faculty director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. He's credited with coining the term open innovation in his 2003 book of the same title. Business model innovation.
Given the pace of technological change, we tend to think of our age as the most innovative ever. These innovations, first developed in the late 19th and early 20th century, have long been transforming the lives of billions. Innovation may be hitting a wall of diminishing returns. In a 2009 paper, The Burden of Knowledge and the 'Death of the Renaissance Man': Is Innovation Getting Harder? Innovators can compensate for this increasing knowledge burden in two key ways.
How can they most effectively learn the skills required in the complex domain? How can we prepare people to work in complex, and not highly ordered, work environments in which most problems are exceptions from which some emergent solutions can be continuously developed, learned, and shared? If we want to help people deal with complex problems and environments then they need to learn and practice in these. Complexity
Disruptive innovation was first introduced by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen in a 1995 Harvard Business Review (HBR) paper co-written with Joseph Bower. The concept was further elaborated and popularized in Christensen's 1997 bestseller The Innovator's Dilemma , and in the articles and books he's written or co-authored since then. 20 years after its introduction, Christensen has revisited his original concept in What is Disruptive Innovation? ,
But part of my fascination with the subject is that I often ask myself similar questions when thinking about the equally mysterious world of highly complex emergent systems, that is, systems where the whole can at times be quite different from the sum of their parts. The reasons meteorologists give forecasts based on probabilities is because, given how complex weather systems are, they in fact don't have access to all relevant information.
Transformational innovations don't always play out as originally envisioned. In addition to developing standards and organizing promotional activities, these various organization make available open source implementations of their software releases, thus encouraging collaborative, open innovation. It's too early to know if the blockchain will become another major transformational innovation. Once in the marketplace, they seem to acquire a life of their own.
As i ts website explains: "While digital technologies are rapidly transforming both business practices and societies and are integral to the innovation-driven economies of the future, they are also the core driver of the great economic paradox of our time. How can we accelerate the transformation of institutions, organizations, and human skills to keep up with the quickening pace of digital innovation?
The premise of A Useful Idea is that improvisation acting principles can help with the creation of something new, and perhaps innovative. The five principles are: Assume complexity and only control process choices, not the outcome. ComplexityNourish 'ensemble' to let go of safety and dive in with openness [ improv activities help]. Design skillful rehearsals & adaptive performances [ perpetual beta ]. Tap into source [ half-baked ideas ].
Globalisation (think continued bubbles and crashes, a regional underclass, the world becoming urban, frugal innovation). Every one of the major challenges facing us is complex. But our organizations are not designed for complexity. Our education institutions do not teach an understanding of complexity. Our workplace training does not factor in complexity. While not all of our problems are complex, the simpler issues are being dealt with.
"Countries that can harness the current wave of innovation, mitigate its potential disruptions, and capitalize on its transformative power will gain economic and military advantages over potential rivals," was the top finding of the Innovation and National Security Task Force which was commissioned by the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) to assess the current state of US technological innovation. US decades-old leadership in innovation and R&D is now at risk.
Some 10 years ago now when I first became interested in how complexity science might be used in public administration there was a body of thinking but relatively few practical examples of applications. This has brought attention to approaches informed by complexity science for working with intractable problems as well as a way to square the circle of making localization workable and relevant. So what is applying complexity thinking to public policy really all about?
It comes from the 1990's but is still in use to describe the complex and chaotic world of business, politics, and technology. Complexity. Innovation. Velocity and agility can be improved at the organizational level with frameworks, such as Niels Pflaeging's Organize for Complexity approach. On the other hand, creativity and innovation emerge from organizations that are open, diverse, and have dynamic tensions that promote experimentation. Complexit
The network era workplace requires collaboration and cooperation because complex problems cannot be solved alone. In order to develop the necessary emergent practices to deal with complexity we therefore need to cultivate the diversity and autonomy of each worker. Innovation requires diversity. Innovation is not so much about having ideas as it is about making connections. Innovation is in a state of perpetual beta. Innovation Leadership SocialLearning
In thinking about this question over the last few years, I started to notice that a number of subtle, non-intuitive concepts that I learned many years ago as a physics student seem to apply to the world of big data and information-based predictions in highly complex systems. So is the world of highly complex systems , especially those systems whose components and interrelationships are themselves quite complex, as is the case with systems biology and evolution. .
The subject of my seminar was Managing Technology-based Disruptive Innovations. Given my long career at IBM, as well as my more recent involvement with Citi, it is not surprising that I am particularly interested in entrepreneurship and innovation in large companies. Its lead article defined the term as: "somebody who offers an innovative solution to a (frequently unrecognised) problem. Startups are generally organized around one central innovation.
Anecdote reports that John Kotter, leadership guru , is accepting that methods like his 8-step process for leading change may not be effective in the face of complexity. I have been discussing the potential of communities of practice in fostering innovation for some time here. In my last post I wrote that in an increasingly complex workplace, many of the old models are no longer useful, referring more specifically to workplace learning.
As our markets and technologies get more complex, we need new models to get work done. For instance, we know that creative work can yield more innovation, yet our workplaces usually stifle creativity. However, complex systems are not fully knowable, though they can be partially understood through interaction with them. If companies want to remain competitive in the global market, they need to focus on complex and creative work. Complex problems cannot be solved alone.
But, they are being reincarnated in our 21st century information economy as market-facing innovation labs, with significantly different and broader scopes than those of the original industrial economy research labs. Since we did not have a good understanding of what it was that they actually did, let alone what their problems were, we could not tell them how our innovative ideas could be of help to them in their work.
For one reason or another I've ended up talking about various social innovation labs in multiple locations over the last couple of weeks and I've got a call on the subject tomorrow. I will expand on that in tomorrow's post as it is a key concept in anthropology-complexity and applies in several application areas not just this. The post Social innovation labs, initial thoughts appeared first on Cognitive Edge.
Customer self-service is an excellent example of recombinant innovations , which UC Davis professor Andrew Hargadon defines as innovations that "rather than chasing whole new ideas, [are] focused on recombining old ideas in new ways." The basic premise behind these kinds of innovations is the search for breakthrough ideas that might lead to the creation of new products, markets and industries based on novel combinations of existing technologies .
Almost seventy years ago, Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter popularized the term creative destruction to describe the process of transformation that accompanies disruptive innovation. In Schumpeter's vision of capitalism, innovative entry by entrepreneurs was the force that sustained long-term economic growth, even as it destroyed the value of established companies that enjoyed some degree of monopoly power.
Outcomes result from the interplay of complex adaptive systems. What's a person to do when complexity turns our clockwork universe on its head? My colleagues at the Internet Time Alliance agree that we need to embrace complexity , not hide from it. Harold Jarche writes, "Few are bored with complex challenges. In October, he's leading a series of one-day executive seminars on Leading Through Complexity: A New Simplicity.
The perpetual beta working model tries to show how work and learning are related as we negotiate various types of networks to get new ideas, test them out, and innovate how we work. A 2005 article on Network Structure & Innovation by Steve Borgatti defined two types of innovation networks based on the need for either individual creativity or interactive creativity. In our work teams we can focus on incremental innovation, to get better at what we already do.
I recently read an excellent innovation report, - Strategic Orientations for Innovation: Chile in the 2025 Horizon. The document was developed by Chile's National Innovation Council for Competitiveness (CNIC) , a public-private organization charged with providing advice to the President of the Republic on policies that will strengthen innovation and competitiveness in the country. This was like no innovation document I've read.
Five years later, Dave Snowden makes a similar observation, sparked by a KPMG marketing brochure on "cutting through complexity" Dave concludes: If a consultancy firm really wants to help their clients they they should support them in living with complexity, riding its potential, avoiding reductionist approaches, engaging customer and staff in a sensing network. Complex problems require require different thinking. Ability to innovate faster. complexity
This semester I am teaching the innovation half of a course on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at NYU's new Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP). Teaching forces you to take a fresh look at the subjects you are covering, so I find myself revisiting questions I've long been thinking about: What is the essence of innovation in the digital economy and how does it differ from the industrial age innovation of the past two hundred years?