People innovate creating value for people

I have recently had the opportunity to read the proceedings of ITEMS Global Forum 2012.

How nice to run into other people’s thoughts and posts on which I agree. That’s a good way to reduce my efforts when writing new posts!

I’m referring to the following two presentations:

1) John G. Jung, Chairman and Co-Founder, Intelligent Community Forum – ICF, USA about Intelligent Communities: Platforms to Grow Innovation.

2)  Michael Stankosky, Research Professor George Washington University – GWU, USA about Strategies for Open Innovation.

In the first presentation, I found the following definition of innovation: “Innovation is about coming up with a better process, creating a new product, improving an existing one, opening a new market, finding a new source of supply or a creating a better way to organize ourselves. It may be technology-driven but it is just as likely to focus on a new and better way for people to work together”.  Some keywords follow: “The important thing about innovation is that it creates economic value and spinoff benefits for the entire community.”

Innovation is about creating VALUE. We often miss this simple, but crucial point. The true  meaning of value is a key topic in this blog.

The speech also explains what an Intelligent Community is. It’s worth quoting it here: What is an Intelligent Community? Intelligent communities recognize and respond to the opportunities that technology provides. They are platforms for innovation that translate to a higher quality of life. A lot of these cities [wrf. to presentation] that become intelligent communities are also playing a key role in job creation and economic growth. They leverage their unique qualities and traditional strengths in new innovative ways creating a whole new economic, social and cultural environment, and establish an ecosystem that helps to create a culture of use and culture of creativity and innovation. All of these cities participate in the broadband economy with a strong focus on digital inclusion to ensure that everybody participates. And finally, the transformation into an intelligent community occurs at every level – live, work and play.”

Let’s move to the second presentation now, which focuses more on the means used to create innovation.  Here is a small excerpt of this speech: If it ain’t broke, break it. For innovation, we always have to rethink the possible. Policy is a strategic enabler, it guides resources and it guides focus. In the process, there are the 4 Cs: One is CODIFICATION. …  We need to have more open source access to open source material. … Researchers need to give their things away. The more you give away, the more you get back. … The second one is COLLABORATION. …  No one of us is smarter than all of us. Connecting the right people, with the right knowledge information data, at the right time is most important. The third one is CONVERGENCE. Most innovations that we know happen at the boundaries of disciplines. It is at the frontiers where we find new things, come up with new ideas and how to put it together. … And fourth, COHERENCE, implementing the business strategy throughout all layers of the enterprise. There are some innovations that happen by chance, bur great innovations normally happen by purpose.

In conclusion: share your material and ideas, collaborate, adopt an open and multidisciplinary approach, be focused on finding and giving value… to people!

Many thanks to Mr. Jung, Mr. Stankosky and ITEMS International.