ESPRIT Counsellors

Innovation: Lessons learned

Lesson two: Innovation does not equal technology

Politicians usually equal innovation to science and technology.
The process of innovation however is a process that revolves around people. At the root of this process are the circumstances in which people are at work as well as the conditions in which the population at large lives in a country. Some circumstances are beneficial to the innovation process others are not. Or at its worst, circumstances may be counterproductive.

The synthesis the most political statements and plans come down to, is an equation like this:
high quality education => scientists => technology => new products

Flaws in the equation
This equation not only leaves out the vast majority of the population (i.e. non-scientists), it invariably accepts that the ultimate goal is limited to the development of new products.

A strong case can be made that
> the number of countries that are innovating is increasing
> there is more and faster imitation by honest or dishonest competitors
> the effort that is needed for innovation, is increasing
Each of this findings is an extra reason to not restrict the innovation process to researchers and scientists, but to involve the entire population.

Why is this? It is a matter of "need for speed":
1. Also non-scientists need to contribute by expressing their ideas for improvement and renewal.
2. At the end of the innovation process, the population as such constitutes the market demand. The more involved, the better demand will be understood.
3. The more involved in the process, the earlier people will adopt innovations thus speeding up the process.
4. Competition between innovators speeds up the process.

Conditions
Therefore, an environment that fosters innovation needs:
> researchers and scientists as well as non-scientists (as input to the process)
> a context encouraging investment in innovating activities ( political)
> market demand (customers, preferably the entire population)
> a necessary level of competition within and between innovative organisations
> politicians that correctly understand the dynamics of innovation within a society
> last but not least: a sufficiently high quality of leadership and managerial staff able to engage every person in the company

posted by es @ 16:39