Cornerstones of an Innovation Society (Part III): Transparency and Collaboration

The times where innovation took place by one great mind sitting quietly in some ivory tower and inventing great things are long gone. Team work is essential – we all know about that. But also team work is not sufficient anymore. The complexities of our world are so manifold and we are unlikely to always have the full knowledge required for developing new things ready at hand in house.

Crowd sourcing is important. Let others participate, invite the crowd to bring in ideas and assets. President Barroso stressed this in his speech at last autumn's innovation summit where he stated that “crowd-sourcing and co-creation are now the order of the day”. And he concluded that EU policies need to reflect that, take that up. This is what open innovation means.

For successfully operating in this new environment it is essential that we practice transparency, that we are willing to open up things to others. And it is important that all operate with a collaborative spirit.

I was recently involved with some co-editors in the development of some interesting concept paper. While I was happy to share every single development step with the full group allowing them to give their feedback anytime, some of my co-editors were strongly against such a practice being afraid that this would confuse the bigger group.

Transparency and collaboration are, to a large extend, a matter of mind-set. Those who drive a project need to be ready to receive input from the outside anytime without feeling distorted and without much sensibility. And those who bring in ideas need to be aware that they contribute to work-in-progress, that they are invited and welcome to contribute. They need to apply creativity rather than criticism. Where such a mind-set is not given, collaboration runs the risk to fail and slip into competition, cantankerousness and fight. And, of course, successful collaboration means to be willing to derive consensus and being able to accept compromises.

Now, if I look at standardisation, transparency and collaboration are, of course, essential for the process of standards development. There are some organisations, like W3C, OASIS or the IETF, that have established exemplary processes for transparency and collaboration – powered by modern communication technologies and including Web 2.0 functionality.

It is pretty obvious: the more the trend for societies and businesses is towards collaboration and crowd-sourcing, the more will such elements have to be acknowledged and integrated by standards organisations, companies, governments, etc. And those who are best in operating in such a new environment will be most successful, most innovative on the long run. 

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History:

See also my blog entries on
Cornerstones of an Innovation Society (Part I): Openness 
Cornerstones of an Innovation Society (Part II): Embracing Change

Relevant link of today: OOXML not suitable for Norwegian government

A study published by the Norwegian "Direktoratet for forvaltning og IKT" (Agency for public adminstration and ICT) comes to the result that OOXML is not suitable for being used by the Norwegian government. The study is available online in Norwegian. Amongst the reasons that are given are that the standard with its more than 6000 pages is not appropriate; it is not suitable for collaboration; and there is only one software that can implement it and produce the respective file format. Norway recommends pdf for electronic document exchange of documents that don't need to be edited and ODF (open document format) for all other documents.

See, for instance, the reports on Heise online (German), CIO and on Computerworld.

Parliament confirms new European Commission

The news just fly in. The European Parliament has finally confirmed and approved the new European Commission. This is after a round of individual hearings which took place over the last month.

With this parliamentary vote the new Commission led by President Barroso can enter into its term of office.

As reported by forexyard, in his initial speech to the Parliament  President Barroso outlined the top priorities for this Commission:

"The broad priorities are clear: making a successful exit from the crisis; leading on climate action and energy efficiency; boosting new sources of growth and social cohesion to renew our social market economy."

With a dedicated Commissioner, Ms Neelie Kroes, to drive the Digital Agenda in continuation of the Innovation Society, IT technologies and open standards can play a lead role in this context. Only think about all the potential in standards-based, smarter solutions for increasing energy efficiency and of the growing role of information technologies in integrating societies and economies.

It might be a good coincidence that this new Commission will take office early in the new decade - which will hopefully take us out of the current crisis and open many new opportunities to shape the world and the ways we work and live.

Digital Agenda for Europe - the new EU Commissioner's priorities

Just before Christmas a first round of hearings of the European Parliament with the proposed new EU Commissioners took place - in written form with responses to questionnaires provided by the parliament.

For the ICT sector, the program and ideas of the new Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, Ms Neelie Kroes, are, for sure, of utmost interest. Ms Kroes' responses in the parliament questions are available online.

In this document Commissioner Kroes outlines 4 major priorities:

I intend to develop the European Digital Agenda in close cooperation with the European Parliament and the Council as well as with my Commission colleagues. My initial priorities are: (i) building the high speed networks of the future; (ii) making the online single market a reality; (iii) ensuring that all citizens participate in the information society; and (iv) generating more, better targeted support for ICT research and innovation. Both citizens and industry have a role to play in driving innovation, whether big or small, incumbent or challenger, blue-chip or start-up. (p. 4)

At the end of the document, in the section with the forward looking title "Developing Policy for a Digital Citizenship, Commissioner Kroes indicates a programmatic approach to ICT standardisation for Europe:

I will pay special attention to Europe's contribution to producing high-quality open ICT standards. (p. 7)

Finally, she concludes with mentioning some areas for action inclduing the following:

Further key actions include: following up on the eGovernment, e-Inclusion and eHealth Action Plans and Ministerial declarations. I will also be considering proposals for a Regulation on the eCall vehicle safety system and for the development of our policy on ICT for Energy Efficiency. (p. 7)

I find this a very promising document. Commissioner Kroes includes all major areas for action around ICT, she includes the relevance of open standards - simply a great outlook for what is needed and of areas of action by the Commission.

Happy New Year - and a great new decade to all

Happy New Year ! Yes, indeed, we are in 2010 now. Almost unbelievable, isn't it? A new decade. With a new horizon 2020 and beyond.

The German newspaper FAZ had a great article in its edition of last Saturday (lead article of the Feuilleton part). It was about predictions for the future - especially in the telecommunications and internet sector. While diagnosing that most of these predictions are most of the times either totally wrong or so predictable that they are hardly predictions, the article focusses on some predictions which colleagues from IBM Germany made in 1987 about what the world will be like in 2010. And these IBM predictions from 1987 are remakable in the sense that many of them have actually come true.

The predictions include one about the ubiquitous use of computers and computing intelligence in our daily life and working environments, about the new ways of communication (including electronic mail) in our office environments, about the increasing role of IT as assistive technologies (e.g. in the area of accessibility), and about the fact that Artificial Intelligence technologies will not see a breakthrough and lead to a symbiosis of the human brain and computing.

For everyone who is able to read German I can heartily recommend this article also available in the FAZ online edition.

I have so far not seen any serious predictions about this new decade and what the world will be like in 2020. It looks as if the last decade - and in particular the last years - have shaken up all elements of both the societal, the political and the economic world order that potential predictors prefer to remain quiet and see the future rather unpredictable.

In the area of IT and communication technologies, though, there are some clear trends regarding smarter ways of working, smarter ways of doing things, new ways of social interaction and networking, new strategies of democratic participation and mind setting in the public sphere. It will definitely be a challenging new decade with a lot of potential for creativity and new ideas. Many good reasons to be excited about it....

Cornerstones of an Innovation Society (Part II): Embracing Change

Innovation always means change. Innovators are hungry for change, for improvement, for finding better, smarter ways of doing things. And change always means that things will be different. Where people don't like to see things getting different there is no room for innovation. I assume there is no dispute on that.

Innovators drive change. They don't wait till they are changed. About a decade ago the small book “Who moved my cheese” from Spencer Johnson provided an entertaining and inspiring allegory on the need to embrace change and to actively get involved into working on the future and driving change.

Now, for sure all of us constantly see situations where people, groups or organisations are hesitant to accept change because they fear of loosing something, be it status, influence, market dominance, etc. The consequence is resistance to change – which is, in turn, a barrier to innovation.

It is, therefore, important to create a mentality for innovation. It is up to everyone of us to become more open to change, to constantly look and strive for change rather than waiting for others to start change processes. After all, those who do not drive change, will be changed. In his speech at the European Innovation Summit President Barroso talked about the task of “nurturing the mindset” (p.2). And for sure we need to go ahead with good example and develop the proper mindset ourselves.

The following 5 imperatives are fundamental for a culture of change and we constantly need to investigate ourselves:

1. Are there changes or modernisations that I consider necessary or desirable?

2. Are there areas where I am resistant to change and therefore block or try to avoid?

3. What prevents me from going ahead?

4. Am I open for the necessary changes and the consequences?

5. Am I ready to invest time and effort in taking responsibility for driving change?

These imperatives are certainly not inclusive. We can work on them to make them more precise. Suggestions more than welcome. But what is clear, I think: A successful innovation society needs a culture of change, a mindset that accepts and embraces movement, improvement, change – in other words: a mindset that is always ready to innovate.

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History:

See also my blog entry on Cornerstones of an Innovation Society (Part I): Openness

New era starts in Europe today as Lisbon treaty comes into force

After a long time of debate and negotiation as well as of ratification in the member states the Lisbon treaty comes into force today. This treaty defines the new constitution for Europe - with two main new introductions:

1. a permanent President of the European Council
2. a High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

For these two posts Herman Van Rompuy and Baroness Catherine Ashton were recently chosen.

The German newspaper FAZ gives on its website a good chart today illustrating the functions and organisations according to the Lisbon treaty.

See also the official EU website on the Treaty of Lisbon and the summary of the new structure at The Treaty at a Glance.