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.
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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 |  |
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| Chicago, IL. 3 July 08 |  |
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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.”
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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 | |
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| Chicago, IL. 30 June 08 | |
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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.
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Related posts:
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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 | |
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| Chicago, IL. 22 June 08 | |
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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.
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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 | |
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| Naperville, IL. 20 June 08 | |
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Innovation and the role of government (2)
“Many ingredients go into creating a flourishing innovative ecosystem. Bright scientists and engineers are essential. A genuine need for technological solutions helps foster new ideas. Money to fund those projects. And perhaps the most underappreciated but essential ingredient is a marketplace. An innovative ecosystem needs enough consumers with cash to buy, use and critique the precious early gadgets, and to create a lush, deep market when the device becomes widely available.”
Read “Europe Innovates” on Forbes.
“In Europe, which has historically had tougher regulations and more onerous tax structures than in the U.S., entrepreneurs would like to see governments turn a more favorable eye and lighter tax treatment to fledgling private efforts. Governments could also loosen restrictions that make it difficult for universities to collaborate with corporations. Public funding, particularly in Switzerland, tends to favor basic academic research over applied research.”
Read Parmy Olson’s article, “Europe Most Innovative Countries” on Forbes.
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I’m following up on a previous post I wrote earlier in the week on innovation and public policy, which I suggest reading to make sense of the following. The Economist points to the benefits of a “venturesome economy” where innovators and consumers are willing to take risks by selling and buying products and services which involve new technologies. That is meant to be a virtuous circle which would not rely on direct public spending. The Economist’s rationale is that a bureaucracy spending tax payers money by investing in specific industries would not be a cost effective way of promoting innovation, competitiveness and jobs. BusinessWeek’s Bruce Nussbaum makes a case for public policy to address the country’s educational system and infrastructure as part of a national innovation policy.
Governments have traditionally play a role by deploying simultaneous supply-push and demand-pull policies. Public investment in science would be an example of the supply-push model. Demand-pull policies are about new market development enabled by favorable regulatory frameworks fostering entrepreneurship.
I have received some emails asking me to further address this topic. So, I will be sharing more insights in my next posts. In the meantime, I will continue to welcome your comments and feedback.
| J. de Francisco | |
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| Naperville, IL. 19 June 08 | |
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