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Innovation: Some Thoughts after the Summit for The
Future 2005
Valeri Souchkov, February 2005
In January 26-18,
2005,
Club of Amsterdam
conducted the
“Summit for the Future”
which became a major multinational event uniting
those who are interested and willing in influencing
further scientific, technological and economic
development of Europe. While speaking at the Section
“Science and Technology”, I observed that most of
the attention from speakers and audience which
enthusiastically participated in the discussions was
paid to the issue of innovation which will become a
main performance indicator in knowledge-based
economy.
I would like to summarize the major points which
were raised and agreed upon by most of the audience:
· These
days, Europe faces a choice: either to transform to
a knowledge-based society where the major value will
be defined by Intellectual Property and intellectual
assets; or to continue capitalizing on knowledge and
know-how of the existing business and economic
models and their further perfection.
From the point of view of the TRIZ trends of
evolution, the current S-curve of European evolution
has reached the maturity level, where manufacturing
and production do not experience any radical changes
any longer: instead, the focus is put on their
perfection and optimization; and there is still
plenty of room to do that. But still, the change
will happen – it is inevitable. Without changing,
the European economy has a high chance to fall to
stagnation.
What makes it possible to start a new S-curve – to
shift towards knowledge-based economy, where a
significant role will be played by Intellectual
Property, a major product sellable as within Europe
as well to the rest of the world? Among positive
points there are highly educated society, strong
scientific and cultural traditions, highly developed
communication infrastructure, highly developed
networking approach. What are the obstacles?
Conservatism, fear of change, inertia, hierarchical
management structures, current education system,
long delays with decision making.
· Ideas
for breakthrough innovations are not created within
organizations; they are created within communities,
mostly informal, comprised of groups and individuals
with different backgrounds and experiences but
driven towards a common goal. Thus it is very
important to understand how to identify and create
such groups and what mechanisms provide maximum
performance of such groups.
· Innovation
is not about science and technology only. An
organization that would like to take a position of a
leader should be innovative in every aspect of its
activities.
·
Innovation Cycle
consists of three distinct phases: a) generation of
an innovative idea; b) development of the idea by
transforming it to a product or a service; c) making
success of the innovation on the market or within a
society.
Therefore it is important to develop and evolve all
methods that support every part of the entire
Innovation Cycle evenly rather than putting a strong
focus on one part and neglect or minimize the role
of another part. So far, this has been a case: while
there are serious investments to developing economic
aspects of the Innovation Cycle, a little is
invested to understanding how innovative ideas are
produced.
· Current
educational system does not create innovators.
Instead, it creates a knowledgeable individual in a
certain narrow area of specialization, but this does
not help much with learning how to think
innovatively and generate new ideas. To produce new
ideas systematically and an immediate response to
the market or societal needs, learning specific
knowledge and mastering thinking methods should be
balanced.
· A
success of modern innovation depends on how three
major knowledge sources are interfaced: knowledge of
a specific domain where innovation is demanded;
expert knowledge of a domain which can help to
create a new innovation; and innovative thinking.
This points us to three groups of expertise which
are relevant to each source.
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