Saturday, November 26, 2011

Ten Faces of Innovation


What does it need to bring innovation into the real world, fueling its business model on its own?

Of course it needs a unique idea. Or an innovative new concept to combine already known stuff, ideas, or concepts.

Is it already sufficient, or does it need more? 

There is the need of capital, networks, markets, and resources to get down to these. Will it be your peers, former student colleagues, mentors, financial advisors? Or will there be more to consider, in order to accelerate the initial spark of an idea towards overwhelming business success? What has made Facebook, XING, Google, ... so great?

Tom Kelley, IDEO, has brought together the ten faces of innovation.

What is your face, and how do you play your role in bringing innovation into being?

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Boundary Spanning Future of Communication

We experimented a lot while prototyping on creating the knowledge & future accelerator here in Dresden from 2009 on. EtherPad as the platform to write the first collaborative business ever done in Dresden for the business plan competition futureSAX (I think the site is only in German, yet GoogleTranslate may help). Also we used it to crowdtranslate the subtitles of Ray Kurzeil's TED talk on Singularity University back in 2008 (German subtitling was organized and led from Dresden, the heart of SiliconSaxony).

Yet the video Bernd Nürnberger, a like-minded Presencing & Social Innovation friend from Japan, shows what really is possible in the time of collaboratively co-creating the future, across disciplines, time, distance, and culture (including the cultures of engineering, researching, politics, citizens - which when deeply looked at as in Edgar Schein's paper are quite different, seldom freely interchanging the group-wise intellectual properties, knowledge, and wisdom). [cont.]



What experiences have we had in using technologies to include different cultures in the conversation?

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Culture an Innovation Accelerator?

Driving home with a friend from a presentation today on why business leaders shouldn't leave out Facebook, Google+, and social networks in general.

The question arises, "May I ask, what you perceive of what I am doing and especially my value proposition?"

His answer, "I frankly don't know what you are doing!"

... a clear answer. But why am I troubled?!

About six months ago the head of Dresden Marketing, the city of Dresden's own marketing company, Dr. Bettina Bunge called me the "Alpha-Blogger of Dresden" during a workshop about the value proposition of the local creative class for business, research, tourism, and general economic well-being. A nice description of my work for about two decades by now, which states my personal love, and passion for the city pretty much to the point. Yet where is the value proposition seen in that perception? Who does share that there is value in connecting people, building bridges across countries, cultures, and disciplines, and on the sideline promotes Dresden across the globe?

Maybe we have a more scattered "culture landscape" than we might imagine and asked ourselves. Edgar Schein, professor (emer.) at MIT Sloan School of Management has written a well known book bringing more light to the issue, called "Organizational Culture and Leadership".

We really don't know about reality until we ask the honest question, accessing our own ignorance. And from there we learn as our emotions (clearly mine) accelerate and rise high. As long as the cultures of the giver and taker have not arrived at a shared understanding of each other innovation is on a stony path, and the "horsepower of entrepreneurs" can't be put effectively onto the road.

... so is it true that "Culture is the Way to Innovation"? What's your personal experience?

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Social Theatre - Value for Learning

Today I once more have been reminded that life is a theatre.
Similar to actors, singers, or dancers everything one does in
interaction with people requests for feedback.

Giving something of value and expect something in return. 
If that isn't fitting your expectations, it really can downturn you.

YET - take it as the gift of learning, even though your feelings
are hurt for a minute (or longer). A dear friend has sent me
the following poem on that.

And all credit goes to my mentor Edgar Schewhose, whose life path has 
been similarly meandering through time as mine, as he told me
(and others) on Erving Goffman's concept of 'Social Theatre'.