Innovation and the role government (4)
“Countries that regularly outperform others on innovation not only spend more on science and technology (as a proportion of GDP) but they also institute policies that drive innovation demand and supply. To be a leader requires public policy that systematically promotes national innovation and helps cutting-edge sectors achieve their global potential.”
“Innovation Overview” is part of “How Canada Performs” a report released by The Conference Board of Canada.
“The successful experience of the Nordic countries, Singapore, the United States or Korea shows that a coherent government vision on the importance of ICT, coupled with an early focus on education and innovation, are key not only for spurring networked readiness, but also to lay the foundations for sustainable growth (…) Many countries like, for example, Singapore, Estonia and Finland have very sophisticated national policies (…) countries need effective public/private partnerships because the government cannot do it alone, neither can the private sector.”
Irene Mia, Senior Economist of the Global Competitiveness Network at the World Economic Forum, as quoted by a Finfacts’ article.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The two articles I referred above happen to discuss Canadian and Irish concerns about the fitness of those countries innovation policies. The Conference Board’s report gives Canada a ‘D’ noting that most of the country’s companies do not take chances with leading edge technologies, thus falling behind industry leaders. The same report refers to Ireland as the best improved country. However, Finfact’s article complains about Irish politicians’ lack of strategic vision and disjointed initiatives. Ireland has been downgraded in The Global Information Technology Report 2007-2008 released by the World Economic Forum.
The above table shows side by side the outcome of three different studies. In case you wonder if this is an apples to apples comparison, “The Networked Readiness Index” is part of a report under the title “Fostering Innovation Through Network Readiness”. The rollout of ICT, Information and Communication Technologies, being a leading indicator illustrating a ’cause and effect’ relationship as ICT happen to be key to a country’s competitiveness in the XXI century. When reading these rankings, whether a country ranks 1st or 2nd might be less relevant than being among the top, mid or lower tiers as far as policy making is concerned.
Related posts:
- Innovation and the role of government (1)
- Innovation and the role of government (2)
- Innovation and the role of government (3)
- The 2008 Global Venture Capital Survey
- The Top 10 Best R&D Companies in the World
| J. de Francisco |  |
|
| Chicago, IL. 3 July 08 |  |
 |
|
Innovator’s dilemmas: are organizational antibodies good or bad?
“Why can’t companies kill projects that are clearly doomed? (…) the failures I’ve examined resulted, ironically, from a fervent and widespread belief among managers in the inevitability of their projects’ ultimate success. This sentiment typically originates, naturally enough, with a project’s champion; it then spreads throughout the organization, often to the highest levels, reinforcing itself each step of the way. The result is what I call collective belief, and it can lead an otherwise rational organization into some very irrational behavior.”
Read Isabelle Royer’s article, “When Bad Ideas Won’t Die“, on Harvard’s Working Knowledge.
“Exert strong leadership on the innovation strategy and portfolio decisions; integrate innovation into the company’s basic business mentality; align the amount and type of innovation to the company’s business; manage the natural tension between creativity and value capture; neutralize organizational “antibodies”; recognize that the basic unit of innovation is a network that includes people and knowledge both inside and outside the organization; and create the right metrics and rewards for innovation.”
Read Sean Silverthorne’s review of “Making Innovation Work.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I just finished reading a couple of articles talking about the negative impact of “organizational antibodies”. This term relates to people as well as corporate behaviors and policies hampering innovation. However, I’m not sure this medical metaphor works. Antibodies happen to be key to our immune system by helping us tackle bacteria and viruses. Based on that fact, metaphorically speaking, one would think that organizational antibodies might not be such a bad thing.
I would suggest reading the above two quotes one more time. It seems to me that the first one questions the role of yespeople and the lack of organizational antibodies. The second one makes a point about neutralizing naysayers to be able to make progress. This shows two extremes of a continuum. Innovators need to aware of the reality of their projects and organizations to drive a project to completion. The same applies to figuring out when to exit a project and to move to the next thing.
| J. de Francisco | |
|
| Chicago, IL. 30 June 08 | |
| |
|
Innovator’s dilemmas: vaporware vs. innovation?
“After being in the mobile phone market for more than a decade, now we would like to divert our attention on innovation. In the near future, one can expect some innovative mobile phones from Samsung (…) “We would like to incorporate the word innovation in our brand value.”
Youngcho Chi, Senior VP, Strategic Planning Team, Samsung Electronics as quoted by Business Standard.
“It’s important to understand how innovation can effect the perceived value of your brand. Done right, innovations can keep your brand fresh and relevant to those people who already know and understand it. Innovation can also open your brand to new market opportunities.”
Mike Bawden’s post “A Little Innovation Goes A Long Way” on Brand Central Station.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
When a company shifts gears to use innovation to build brand value the first set of questions that come to mind happen to be about the specific things that are going to change. In the high-tech market, establishing the innovative quality of a given brand requires an unequivocal commitment to new product and market development leading to serial innovations (unless the company already had innovative products and just didn’t do a good job at marketing them.)
Often times, the word “innovation” is being purposely misused as part of vaporware. That eventually translates into unfulfilled promises and lack of brand credibility. Nonetheless, the fact is that vaporware continues to be leveraged as a short term tactic aimed to either prevent or delay customer decisions on competing products and vendors.
The above issue should not be confused with the kind of thought leadership driven by well intentioned visionaries and market creation efforts involving next generation technologies. In any case, most would agree that an innovation qualifies as such when the concept has been productized and user adoption validates it, thus effectively building brand value.
| J. de Francisco | |
|
| Chicago, IL. 26 June 08 | |
| |
|
Innovation and the role of government (3)
“While the U.S. and other OCED nations often started with similar technological capabilities, the U.S. emerged as a technological leader due in large part to multiple government actions that influenced the innovation system (…) Simply put, investing in R&D alone was not a strategy employed, nor a strategy that would have been effective.”
Vicky Norberg-Bohm, ed’s paper, “The Role of Government in Energy Technology Innovation,” Harvard University.
“Not all environments are conducive to innovation (…) the foundations for favorable environments can be provided by national governments and include sound fiscal and monetary policies, solid legal and regulatory structures, effective intellectual property protection, and a commitment to the principles of free markets.”
Merc on “Innovation”.
“The government has accomplished amazing things … but we think that we can do it less expensively (…) One of the main requirements is to have as little government involvement in the project as possible. We believe that space should be open to anyone and everyone, especially those people who want to go.”
Becky Ramsey, the X Prize Foundation’s director of communications for space projects, as quoted in A Pawloski’s article, “Google launches new space race to the moon,” on CNN.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Related posts:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I selected the above three quotes because they appear to refer to different degrees of government involvement as far as innovation is concerned. In case you wondered, this blog is not aligned with a political party. So, if you were interested in tracking McCain’s and Obama’s views on innovation and technology, then I would suggest having a look at Astra’s comparison table.
Additionally, think tanks such as ITIF and Brookings have recently collaborated on a paper asking for a National Innovation Foundation. Those of you more interested in what’s going on on the other side of the Atlantic might like to go to the E.U.’s site on the European Innovation Policy.
The following is just an inventory of government related actions which would traditionally comprehend basic R&D, applied R&D, as well as market development and complementary policies:
Supply-push initiatives involve investments in R&D, which could be based on factors such as national interest, nurturing long term research and high risk technologies:
- Providing grants, tax incentives and low interest loans for independent innovators
- Funding intramural projects, e.g. national labs and agencies, the military, etc.
- Funding research conducted by public-private partnerships
- Funding research conducted by non-for-profits and universities
- Funding for incubators, industry clusters and venturesome initiatives
- Technology transfer and commercialization policies involving all or any of the above
Market development initiatives would involve policies spurring demand-pull and competitiveness:
- Tax breaks for early adopters of new technologies
- Public campaigns raising awareness and adoption of emerging technologies, e.g. trials, innovation awards
- Regulation as well as deregulation
- Standards as well as lack of thereof
- Intellectual property rights as well as open source
- Anti-trust, product liability and corporate responsibility policies
- Procurement of new technologies by the public administration, civilian agencies and the military
- The development, maintenance and upgrade of physical infrastructure such as transport networks
- Enabling forums for industry collaboration, knowledge sharing and technology transfer
- Statistics and innovation metrics
- Import - export policies and promotion of international trade
Other relevant policies and practices:
- Open public debate and expert consultation
- Continuous improvement of the educational system and professional training
- Facilitating geographical, professional and social mobility
- Immigration, visa policies and brain drain avoidance
I intent to write another couple of posts on this subject as I would like to share other views on the degree to which governments should or should not play a role to foster innovation. In the meantime, I will continue to welcome your emails and comments.
| J. de Francisco | |
|
| Chicago, IL. 22 June 08 | |
| |
|
SAP’s Co-Innovation Lab
“The Co-Innovation Lab, located on SAP’s Palo Alto campus, is a hands-on working environment for SAP, its customers and integration partners to execute joint projects, and work on proof of concepts, enabling them to discover and promote new business applications and technology solutions. Customers also benefit from reduced integration costs and faster innovation cycles while gaining a new generation of highly agile and adaptable solutions.”
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/coil
“The collaboration workspace from SAP aims to provide Web 2.0 infrastructure such as blogs, wikis and online forums – with built-in governance for all companies to participate and collaborate in real time within a secure business network community.”
“SAP Co-Innovation Lab Offers Multiple Projects” on SDA.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
HP, Intel, Cisco and NetApp have donated products and systems to SAP’s COIL, which is celebrating its first anniversary. SAP’s Walldorf facility in Germany, where the company is headquartered, seems to be the reference model for this newer one in the Silicon Valley. The lab provides services such as: project portfolio management, onsite and remote access to live demos and a training theater.
COIL projects involve ISV, independent software vendors and developers, system integrators as well as equipment vendors. The focus is collaboration around SOA, service oriented architecture, SaaS, software as a service and, potentially, service semantics which happens to be the cornerstone of Web 3.0 concepts.
The following video showcases SAP’s developer challenge, which was held just this past week. Forty-five developers from SAP and customer and partner companies worked together in Palo Alto for five days on topics such as: “Green IT,” “Social Computing for the Enterprise” and “Mobilizing the Enterprise.”
| J. de Francisco | |
|
| Naperville, IL. 20 June 08 | |
| |
|
