“Innovation is the process by which we change the world”, Autodesk CEO Carl Bass reminds us in this insightful and thought-provoking Tedx talk. It’s about taking risks and breaking the rules. That’s why innovation is generally not a corporate phenomenon – companies are better at making rules and minimizing risks. Innovation is fundamentally done by individuals, Bass suggests.
Bass discusses about the new rules of innovation. He offers five trends that are affecting innovation:
The age of access and experience
Business un-usual
Digital fabrication
The rise of information
Infinite computing
Innovation is happening at unprecedented pace that is going to continue to accelerate because of these trends.
Bass is president and chief executive officer of Autodesk, Inc. Autodesk is the leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. Formerly he was Autodesk's chief operating officer, responsible for worldwide sales, marketing, and product development. Earlier roles included CTO and EVP of product development.
In the next 15 to 20 years, China is well positioned to join the ranks of the world’s high-income countries. China’s policy makers are already focused on how to change the country’s growth strategy to respond to the new challenges that will come, and avoid the “middle income trap.” This is clearly reflected in recent Five Year Plans, with its focus on quality of growth, structural reforms to harness innovation and economic efficiency, and social inclusion to overcome the rural-urban divide and the income equality gap.
In order to reach that objective, however, China must change its policy and institutional framework. China’s next phase of development will need to build on its considerable strengths—high savings, plentiful and increasingly skilled labor, and the potential for further urbanization—and capitalize on external opportunities that include continued globalization, the rapid growth of other emerging economies, and promising new technologies. At the same time, China will need to address a number of significant challenges and risks, such as an aging society, rising inequality, a large and growing environmental deficit, and stubborn external imbalances.
These are some of the key findings of a joint research report by a team from the World Bank and the Development Research Center of China’s State Council, which lays out the case for a new development strategy for China to rebalance the role of government and market, private sector and society, to reach the goal of a high income country by 2030.
The report, “China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative High-Income Society”, recommends steps to deal with the risks facing China over the next 20 years, including the risk of a hard landing in the short term, as well as challenges posed by an ageing and shrinking workforce, rising inequality, environmental stresses, and external imbalances.
The report lays out six strategic directions for China’s future:
Completing the transition to a market economy;
Accelerating the pace of open innovation;
Going “green” to transform environmental stresses into green growth as a driver for development;
Expanding opportunities and services such as health, education and access to jobs for all people;
Modernizing and strengthening its domestic fiscal system;
Seeking mutually beneficial relations with the world by connecting China’s structural reforms to the changing international economy.
These six priority reform areas lay out objectives for the short, medium, and long term, and policy makers need to sequence the reforms within and across these areas appropriately to ensure smooth implementation and to reach desired outcomes. A successful outcome “will require strong leadership and commitment, steady implementation with a determined will, coordination across ministries and agencies, and sensitive yet effective management of a consultation process that will ensure public support and participation in the design, implementation, and oversight of the reform process. And since the global economy is entering a dangerous phase and China itself will be transitioning from middle-income to high-income status, the government will need to respond to a variety of risks, shocks, and vulnerabilities as they arise; in doing so, it must hold fast to the principle that policy responses to short-term problems should uphold, not undermine, long-term reform priorities.”
Millions of Indian workers are expected to join a strike against high inflation and to demand better working conditions and an end to selling off state firms, reports the BBC. The strike has the support of most of India's major trade unions and thousands of smaller unions from across the political spectrum.
Photo credit: AFP
Banks, transport, post offices and ports are thought most likely to be affected by the industrial action, but services on India's rail network are not expected to be disrupted.
Although India's inflation rate dropped from 9.1% in December, it remains stubbornly high at 7.5%.
Growth for the financial year ending in March is also expected to be around 7%, lower than the previous forecasts of about 9%. The government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is trying to cut its budget deficit by selling stakes in state-run companies - something the unions object to.
Other demands include measures to curb inflation, universal social security cover for non-unionized workers and enforcement of labor laws. States such as West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala, where the communist parties have greater influence, are expected to be most affected by the strike.
A new study of global innovation from GE confirms the increasingly recognized belief that innovation is the main driver of prosperity, competitiveness and job creation, and reveals how challenging and uncertain economic and political environments hinder companies’ ability to deliver meaningful innovation.
The GE Global Innovation Barometer seeks to identify drivers and deterrents of innovation and to analyze perceptions around innovation opportunities and challenges. Nearly 3,000 senior business executives in 22 countries were surveyed on their companies’ innovation strategy and decision making for the report.
The continued uncertainty of the global economy has had a marked impact on companies’ ability to innovate, with nine out of 10 executives reporting increased difficulty accessing external funding or a conservative shift in appetite for risk. Specifically, 88 percent of respondents saw increased challenges accessing venture capital, private investment and government funding, while 77 percent reported a reduction or reevaluation of the company’s willingness to take risks.
The study focused on 13 indicators of an innovative environment:
The level of government support
The efficiency of government support
Trade regulations
IP and patent protections
The efficacy of public-private partnerships
The support of private investors
The preparedness of tomorrow’s innovators
The value the public places on innovation
The public appetite for innovation
The societal acceptance of risk-taking
The level of public support for business
The ease of partnership with academia
The speed of innovative products to market
Findings include:
92 percent of executives said that innovation is the main ingredient for a more competitive national economy, and 86 percent agreed that innovation is the best way to create jobs in their country.
88 percent of executives believe that the way companies will innovate in the 21st century is totally different than ever before.
77 percent of executives acknowledged that individuals and small- to mid-sized enterprises have the ability to be as innovative as large companies.
73 percent agreed that innovation will be driven by people’s creativity over scientific research.
Markets where business is most satisfied with the perceived political and social environment for innovation delivered higher GDP growth (5.19 percent average) than those markets where business feels anxious or threatened by policies (2.32 percent average).
The survey showed that companies’ internal investments in innovation, from research and development budgets to the pursuit of new products or business models, are particularly at risk when the business community perceives a negative shift or deterioration of government policies that support innovation.
71 percent of executives that reported an unfavorable change in external policy or government budget priorities as a result of the global financial crisis also reported cuts in their own company’s R&D spending.
Globally, business reported the least level of satisfaction (42 percent) with the efficiency and coordination of government support for innovation.
Each year since 1999 Harris Interactive has measured the reputations of the most visible companies in the U.S. based on a survey of members of the American general public; his year 17,555 people were interview in the survey process.
In its work Harris has consistently demonstrated the link between strong corporate reputations (i.e., perceptions) and positive supportive behaviors toward those companies, including product purchase and investment behavior. Moreover, it has identified a strong positive relationship between change in reputation and change in market capitalization.
The research evaluates stakeholder perceptions across 20 attributes that are grouped into six dimensions of reputation:
Products & Services
Financial Performance
Workplace Environment
Social Responsibility
Vision & Leadership
Emotional Appeal
The overall conclusion from the survey is that the reputation of Corporate America is more tarnished today than a year ago and that a positive momentum from 2011 has faded in 2012:
Just 2 in 10 Americans say that corporate America’s reputation is positive.
Only 9% of respondents said that the reputation of corporate America improved over the past year, while 60% said it has declined.
Industries positioned as part of the solution to America’s economic woes are best able to weather negative perceptions surrounding corporate America.
Industries that are seen to be helping America’s ailing economy tend to have higher reputations. Technology enjoys reputation dominance; Government lands in last place behind the Tobacco industry
Technology and Retail: 53% and 39% of Americans, respectively, see them as part of the solution.
Industries that are perceived to be hurting the economy tend to have lower reputations.
Financial Services and Banking: 70% and 75% of Americans, respectively, see them as part of the problem.
The Automotive industry continues its reputation recovery, adding another 7 points to positive perceptions after a 15-point increase between 2010 and 2011.
At a specific company level Apple supplants Google for the top spot and Berkshire Hathaway loses luster from prior surveys. Indeed Apple’s score of 85.62, is highest for any company in the history of the survey, and the Technology industry as a whole represents three of the top four companies.
The NMC (New Media Consortium) is an international community of experts in educational technology — from the practitioners who work with new technologies on campuses everyday; to the visionaries who are shaping the future of learning at think tanks, labs, and research centers; to its staff and board of directors; to the advisory boards and others helping the NMC conduct cutting edge research.
NMC has just issued its 2012 Horizon Report that examines emerging technologies and their potential impact on teaching, learning, and creative inquiry within the higher education environment. While an important report for educators and policy makers, it’s also instructive and insightful for those responsible for organizational development.
The report identifies key trends, lays out significant challenges to be faced and examines key technologies to watch. It also maps time to adoption horizons and provides a comprehensive resource base for those wishing to go deeper into each and any of the topics covered.
Here is a summary of the key trends around which the report is centered:
People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want to.
The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based, and our notions of IT support are decentralized.
The world of work is increasingly collaborative, driving changes in the way student projects are structured.
The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators.
Education paradigms are shifting to include online learning, hybrid learning and collaborative models.
There is a new emphasis in the classroom on more challenge-based and active learning.
Future challenges include:
Appropriate metrics of evaluation lag the emergence of new scholarly forms of authoring, publishing, and researching.
Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline and profession.
Economic pressures and new models of education are bringing unprecedented competition to the traditional models of tertiary education.
Institutional barriers present formidable challenges to moving forward in a constructive way with emerging technologies.
New modes of scholarship are presenting significant challenges for libraries and university collections, how scholarship is documented, and the business models to support these activities.
Technologies to watch and their adoption horizon include:
Near-term Horizon
Mobile apps are the fastest growing dimension of the mobile space in higher education right now, with impacts on virtually every aspect of informal life, and increasingly, every discipline in the university.
Tablet computing presents new opportunities to enhance learning experiences in ways simply not possible with other devices.
Mid-term Horizon
Game-based learning has grown in recent years as research continues to demonstrate its effectiveness for learning.
Learning analytics loosely joins a variety of data-gathering tools and analytic techniques to study student engagement, performance, and progress in practice, with the goal of using what is learned to revise curricula, teaching, and assessment in real time.
Far-term Horizon
Gesture-based computing moves the control of computers from a mouse and keyboard to the motions of the body, facial expressions, and voice recognition via new input devices.
The Internet of Things is the latest turn in the evolution of smart objects — a category of small devices or methods that enable an object to be assigned a unique identifier; contain small bits of information, such as the object’s age, shelf life, and environmental data such as temperature or humidity (and much more) attached to it; and then communicate the status of that information on demand, whether optically or via electromagnetic frequencies.
“It was the most successful city the world has ever seen…that’s the comic tragedy”
“It’s like everyone had a great party and then they left.”
“The world just changed; it was almost like you were on a treadmill and someone hit the stop button. It went down hard and fast.”
“It became sort of a war zone.”
“Lemonade Detroit” is a powerful and inspiring film by Erik Proulx that portrays the spirit of a city that sank but hasn’t died. It’s a story of human courage, personified through cameo performances from community members who are fighting through hardship to reinvent the city.
Uniquely, Proulx crowdsourced the film’s production – creating engagement as well as helping fund the project. He invited others to become co-producers by purchasing frames or parts of frames. So far, 2,395 producers have funded 67,914 frames.
The film threads a powerful, emotive performance by Detroit poet David Blair reading his poem, “While I Was Away”; Blair recently passed away prematurely due to heat stroke – a huge loss to the community though he leaves an inspiring legacy.
“Detroit is a tough city, not for the reasons that people think in terms of crime and things like that – they always equate that to toughness, no Detroit is a tough city because you can’t kill Detroit.”
“I wake up every day excited about the possibilities of what can happen in Detroit”
“It’s a city that has begun to realize that it’s really only gonna be lots and lots of small solutions.”
“One building, one block at a time, one person at a time, one life at a time.”
Read an interview with Proulx in which he shares the motivation behind the film and its crowdsourcing approach, and a few thoughts about the film's impact.
As part of its Future of Work series running throughout February, the BBC asked some experts to give their take on how the way we work is going to change.
The changing nature of work means that organizations need to plan ahead for increasingly chaotic environments. The future of work will be a mix of many styles, evolving in various ways in different environments and cultures. Indeed, if you were to sit down today and create a company completely from scratch, would you copy the processes, practices and structures of today's organizations, or would you try to do something different?
Tom Austin, a vice president at Gartner who is leading an effort at defining "people-centered strategies" offers 10 key ways in which the world of work is changing. Some are known long-term trends, while others reflect near-term recognition of the increased speed of change. Either way, organizations need to plan for these mega-trends over the next decade.
The World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Advanced Manufacturing – an august body made up of senior executives from the sector and esteemed academics - reports that the global manufacturing industry is "in a state of upheaval and flux". “There are multiple issues, opportunities and threats facing the industry that will define its future. The global recession left a number of large Western manufacturers in decline and needing government resuscitation. Globalization has brought increased competition, with new competitors from emerging markets gaining scale and market share. The incredible economic growth and rise in consumption in emerging markets, such as China and India, has opened up new markets. Multinational companies that want to serve these new markets will need to manage a global manufacturing footprint, with its attendant risks including external disruptions. Policy-makers need to understand the complexity of today’s post-industrial manufacturing ecosystem and the various drivers of change”.
The World Economic Forum's Future of Manufacturing project tracks how the global manufacturing ecosystem is evolving. This five-minute video explores the future of industry and asks does manufacturing really matter? Leading manufacturers and policymakers discuss human capital, currency volatility, labor rate arbitrage and the potential of advanced manufacturing. The Future of Manufacturing project identifies what companies and countries must do to win in a rapidly changing world.
Tiffany Misrahi a Research Analyst at the World Economic Forum writes, “The world’s complexity and interconnectedness demand a new type of model and solutions for the industrial sector. This is exactly what the Global Agenda Council on Advanced Manufacturing is working on. A new model for manufacturing will not come from one stakeholder, but from a multi-stakeholder dialogue accounting for all relevant issues affecting the sector, including the rising middle class in emerging economies, innovation, job creation and skills gaps, trade policy, supply value chain evolution, environmental impact and more.”
In the six decades of work since Queen Elizabeth II took the throne, work continues to be a central part of everyday life for people in the UK. However, it has changed in ways that probably could not have been imagined.
Despite the worst economic recession in the Queen's reign, there are still millions more people in work today than in 1952, and working life in Britain has been shaped by the interaction of a number of economic and social forces.
In the year of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development considers the changing landscape of work in the UK and the phenomena that have shaped it, including: the changing gender balance; the effects of de-industrialization and the rise of the service economy; and shifts in occupational structure. It makes interesting reading.
Amongst the findings: the volume of work being undertaken in Britain today (by 6 million more workers) (920 million hours each week), is roughly equivalent to the number worked in 1952; however, the value of output of the economy is around four times greater, so the employed workforce has become much more productive, enabling the country to enjoy a much higher level of income for the same amount of work. While Britons are working much smarter and less hard than in the 1950s, their present output per hour worked is 16% lower than in France, 18% lower than in Germany and 23% lower than in the United States.
