How the Web is turning into a giant collaboration forum
Posted by: nigelbarlow on: December 18, 2009
Take a look at this video care of Ideas Project
“I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface yet of understanding how to leverage the power of these social dynamics, but I think a key to unlocking the potential is going to be through developing better tools to visualize our human capital, which would be a combination of our strengths, our skills, and our social connections.”
The Difference Engine launches in the North West
Posted by: nigelbarlow on: December 17, 2009
- In: Creativity| Finance
- 2 Comments
Investment in start-ups relies more on mentoring and marketing than concerns about Intellectual property and patents.
That was the message of Jon Bradford,Part-time VC, and technology evangelist who was speaking at the Christmas Northern Start up event held in Manchester last night.
After a journey that has taken from Arthur Anderson’s in London to Newcastle via Melbourne and Silicon Valley,Bradford has launched The Difference Engine.
The idea came from his initial look into investing in technology start ups.He couldn’t see businesses that he wanted to invest in,whereas it used to cost loads of money to build soft ware business,it now cost little
He then asked the question,how do you cope with that and how do you tackle micro investment?
The result is the difference engine,an acceleration programme for early stage digital businesses.It is a is a full-time 16 week acceleration programme which combines investment capital of £20,000 (for 8% of the business) with mentoring, support and office accommodation with various other services provided by partners.
For the first four weeks of the course,the entrants are subjected to what Jon described as a “being given a good kicking ” where their plans and ideas are put under intense scrutiny from every single angle.Only after those initial four weeks are they allowed to start building their programme.
At the end of the course they are ready to pitch and present for venture capital.
What’s Jon looking for? His answer- the entrepreneur who will work on their ideas not matter what and see it as a life style decision.
If you’re interest get applying.Applications close on the 4th January and the the first 16 week course begins 10th Feb
Collaboration is a human process
Posted by: nigelbarlow on: December 15, 2009
What are the eight things that you need to know about collaboration?
Well Dale Arseneault believes that these are the important ones
1. Collaboration is over used and mis-used and is becoming a buzzword for business people and technologists alike
2. Collaboration isn’t the same as cooperation or coordination – each have different processes, practices and depth of engagement
3. Collaboration is a human process – throwing technology at people won’t magically/automatically create collaboration
4. Meaningful, productive collaboration won’t happen without mutuality of desired outcomes, shared values of transparency and information sharing, compassion, compromise
5. Collaboration implies that “the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few or the needs of the one” and sometimes people aren’t really interested in living by that principle
6. Collaboration isn’t always the best process
7. Collaboration is not equal to Web 2.0
8. Collaboration can be a source of real value in the face of complex environments and situations where no single person has the right answer
Art and science: a love story
Posted by: clareoneill on: December 7, 2009
I got a chance to visit the inspiring Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at MOSI a few days ago. The word polymath is perhaps over-used these days – certainly a man of da Vinci’s incredibly diverse talents still puts most of the human race into the shade.
He believed, absolutely, that there is no art without science. His intense curiosity about the world around him led him to be a painter, engineer, inventor, musician, scientist and mathematician.
Leonardo da vinci
I think that is more difficult today. A few hundred years ago, different branches of science and philosophy were more closely intertwined, and scholars often crossed over between what we would now consider to be disparate branches of knowledge. As world knowledge grew, specialisms developed and the sciences (what we would now broadly distinguish as biology, chemistry & physics) grew apart from each other and from the arts and humanities.
With this came culture change – and not in a good way. In the national mindset, arts and sciences became two foreign lands: arts people would perfectly happily confess their ignorance of scientific matters, and scientists would do likewise with art and philosophy. It became OK to be selectively ignorant.
This led to the novelist and scientist CP Snow to give his famous “Two Cultures” lecture in 1959, out of pure frustration with the way that otherwise intelligent and knowledgeable people would put up imaginary barriers to their wider learning.
Innovation often happens ‘at the edges’ – the interface between different groups or sectors or disciplines – but we often have to achieve this despite of our standard school curriculum and national culture. I generalise of course. But there’s much more we could do to bring different arts and science disciplines together. I vote that as a nation we start mixing things up a lot more. It’ll be fun, educational and productive – what more could you ask?
The five skills of innovating
Posted by: nigelbarlow on: December 1, 2009
- In: innovation
- 1 Comment
Havard Business school and Insead and Brigham Young University have just completed a six-year study of more than 3,000 executives and 500 innovative entrepreneurs and have identified five skills that drive innovation.
The five skills that are seen as separating the blue-sky innovators from the rest associating, questioning, observing, experimenting and discovering.
1.Associating: The ability to connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas from different fields.
2.Questioning: Innovators constantly ask questions that challenge the common wisdom. They ask “why?”, “why not?” and “what if?”
3.Observing: Discovery-driven executives scrutinize common phenomena, particularly the behavior of potential customers.
4,Experimenting: Innovative entrepreneurs actively try out new ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots.
5.Networking: innovators go out of their way to meet people with different ideas and perspectives.
What do you think?
In an interview with America’s CNN,one of the researchers,Hal Gregersen said
“The way they act is to observe actively, like an anthropologist, and they talk to incredibly diverse people with different world views, who can challenge their assumptions, adding
“For them, everything is to be experimented upon — for example, if they walk into a bookstore and they’re used to reading history they might try psychology. All these behaviors are powerfully enhanced by a capacity to ask provocative, challenging questions of the world around them.”
The full study can be seen in December’s Harvard Business Review
A bit of humour for Monday morning
Posted by: nigelbarlow on: November 30, 2009
I have just come across this cartoon thanks to Stefan Lindegaard’s Continous Innovation Group.
As he says,”Internal forces are often the worst enemies of innovation.”
Innovation Cartoon
Innovation is at the heart of economic success says NESTA
Posted by: nigelbarlow on: November 26, 2009
The UK’s economic success will depend upon its ability to commercialise and profit from research and ideas and to innovate in the service sector and creative.
Innovation was responsible for nearly 2/3 of private sector productivity growth in the UK between 2000-2007
That’s the conclusion of NESTA who earlier today launched its innovation index.
According to the research,UK businesses invested £133bn in innovation in 2007,representing 14 per cent of private sector output. More than three-quarters of this came from “hidden innovation”, in areas other than research and development.
The index showed that a significant part of innovative performance came not from the tradition area of R&D but areas such as design,organisational innovation and the development of innovative skills.
There was also a firm link between innovation and growth.
The study surveyed 1500 firms in the UK across nine sectors.
You can download a PDF of the full survey HERE
2009’s top inventions
Posted by: nigelbarlow on: November 25, 2009
Time magazine has just produced its list of what it regards as the top 50 inventions of 2009.
Ares rocket off to the stars
No doubt the first of many top list for the year and for the decade,its top of the hit parade is NASA’s Ares rocket which the magazine describes as
The best and smartest and coolest thing built in 2009 — a machine that can launch human beings to cosmic destinations we’d never considered before — is the fruit of a very old family tree, one with branches grand, historic and even wicked.
Business model generation
Posted by: nigelbarlow on: November 23, 2009
- In: innovation
- 1 Comment
A new book has arrived in our office here at Innovation Manchester.
Open the front cover and it asks you three questions.
1.Are you an entrepreneurial spirit?
2.Are you constantly thinking about how to create value and build new businesses,or how to improve and transform your organisation?
3.Are you trying to find innovative ways of doing business to replace old outdated ones.
Sound interesting? The book is a practical guide to understanding designing and reinventing business models.
Dave Crowther,an Innovation Manchester project leader, has contributed to the book,one of 470 contributors.
I have just had a chance to flick through it and its packed full of techniques and numerous examples of new business models ,many of them coming out as a response to changing digital technologies.
For more information take a look at the site or even pop into our office and take a look
I-Discover launches in Manchester last night.
Posted by: nigelbarlow on: November 20, 2009
The tables were turned on the adults last night at Urbis Manchester as a panel of schoolchildren scrutinised bids from their peers in the well known format of Dragon’s Den
Guests discussing their pitches to the young dragons
The exercise was part of the launch of NESTA’s I-Discover programme in the city which aims to ensure that young people have the vital skills, confidence and self esteem to prepare them for the future world of work.
Pupils from selected schools are given vouchers worth £200 each term for them to spend on amazing learning experiences of their choice.
The young people themselves will choose which learning experiences to spend their money on, with activities covering a host of themes – music, sport, science, art, technology, design, architecture, business, charity and loads more.
Pupils will emerge from the programme better prepared for the future – with energy and resilience and having developed creative and entrepreneurial talents.
Sir Howard Bernstein speaking at the launch of the I-Discover programme
Amongst those speaking at the event were Ben Aurora,Director of the Education stream at NESTA,and Sir Howard Bernstein,chief executive at Manchester City Council who stressed the importance of the programme for the city.
For the record,the winning “bid” selected was a scheme to encourage children to explore technologies to help alleviate the world’s problems such as climate change and famine.
I-Discover is funded jointly by NESTA and the Manchester innovation fund.
