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This site addresses what's changing, at the personal, organisational and societal levels. You'll learn about key changes across more than 150 elements of life, from ageing and time, through nature and animals, to kindness and love...and much more besides, which will help you better prepare for related change in your own life.

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What's Changing? - Innovation

Innovation

 

Please see below selected recent innovation-related change. 

 

See also:

 

May 2024

  1. Teams working from different locations are less likely to come up with groundbreaking ideas compared to those working together in the same place, according to a study1 by the universities of Oxford and Pittsburgh. The main finding is that although remote collaboration can offer new and creative scientific thoughts by tapping into a global pool of knowledge, it’s harder for these teams to work together effectively and achieve breakthroughs: while remote collaboration via the internet can bring together diverse pools of talent, it also makes it harder to fuse their ideas.

 

March 2024

 

June 2023

 

January 2023

 

December 2022

 

July 2022

  • As the pandemic forced many usual activities online, many pondered whether the virtual platforms had affected our activities. Indeed, data suggests that while remote working was good for business-as-usual tasks, it was less effective for innovation that still relies so heavily on physical proximityResearch from Cornell University suggests it’s not so much the means of interacting that matters as it is our orientation when doing so. The researchers suggest that sitting face-to-face with someone rather than shoulder-to-shoulder greatly enhances our ability not just to innovate but also to learn. Across a number of experiments, participants were able to solve visual and spatial problems more effectively when they were watching a solution being demonstrated face-to-face than when they were watching it.

 

June 2022

 

January 2022

 

November 2021

 

September 2021

 

June 2021

 

May 2021

 

February 2021

 

January 2021

  • In large parts of the global economy, the past 10 years have been marked by disappointing growth. The innovations of the 2010s - smartphones, social media - didn't seem to accelerate productivity as anticipated. But several signs suggest we are on the cusp of a growth spurt from 2021, The Economist reported on biological advances that have led to the rapid development of several COVID-19 vaccines, renewed investment in R&D from the private and public sectors and the swift adoption of digital tools during the pandemic, all offering hope that a new innovation era is dawning.

 

December 2020

  • New World, Same Humans noted that while private industry created the pandemic vaccines, this was only against the backdrop of massive government action to de-risk their work. One example: in the summer of 2020, Pfizer closed a $2 billion advance purchase order with the US government. With financial return all but guaranteed, then, the corporation was liberated to throw massive resources at ultra-fast safety trials. For decades we’ve been told that governments stifle innovation. The truth, as economist Mariana Mazzucato says, is that only government has the heft to support innovation on a grand scale

 

November 2020

  • Individuals are often idolised as masters of ideas, but according to Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, it usually takes many people iterating and taking chances for a company to be truly innovative. By giving teams the freedom to try (and fail) without being micro-managed, organisations can create a culture that allows innovation to happen, not one that tries to force it to happen, reported Big Think.

 

July 2020

  • Bringing innovative products to market faster than competitors is difficult, warned McKinsey. Doing it again and again, year after year, is very challenging indeed. And many organizations struggle, especially when combining ideas into a steady stream of profitable innovations that generate real customer value. Lack of effort is hardly the problem. Organisations devote serious resources to internal R&D departments, collaborative efforts with suppliers, external funding opportunities for universities, and open-market acquisitions of intellectual property. The real gap is usually deeper: the processes, management approach, and culture required to deliver innovative products to market next year are very different from those required to investigate and develop breakthrough technologies for release in five or even 10 years.
  • However, McKinsey also noted that many executives see innovation as the most important way for companies to accelerate the pace of change in today's global business environment. Leading strategic thinkers are moving beyond a focus on traditional product and service categories to pioneer innovations in business processes, distribution, value chains, business models, and even the functions of management.
  • Too often, “good teams kill great ideas”. Physicist and entrepreneur Safi Bahcall discovered how to change a company’s culture by changing the underlying structures supporting its teams. He told Future of Work podcast host that companies must balance “core” versus “new” priorities, though that’s easier said than done. Innovators’ goals may be at odds with the objectives of those in charge of getting a product to market.
  • Innovation and communication media in virtual teams: an experimental study, by the University of Cologne and Leibniz University Hannover, suggested employees working from home are unlikely to be less innovative. The report said video conferencing among team members could compensate potentially negative effects on innovation when employees work remotely from each other. “Previous research has shown that creative performance is significantly lower when there is no face-to-face communication,” said Professor Bernd Irlenbusch, who co-led the study. “However, the current lockdown has fostered the adoption of new technologies to conduct collaborative tasks when team members work from home. Video conferencing can mitigate the gap in creative performance.

 

June 2020

  • The intense innovation activity ignited by the global pandemic showed some companies are moving faster and taking bigger risks than could have been imagined a few months earlier. A further impetus to rethinking established and cumbersome innovation approaches is the acceleration of many trends that are already underway. The lockdown brought forward a shift to on-line work practices and team-sharing platforms while creating new opportunities. For example, 3D printing is getting a boost by helping to replace faraway suppliers with nearby 3D printing contractors and make supply chains more resilient.

 

December 2019

  • Azeem Azhar asked how we should we manage innovation. In a field like medicine, we’ve established a rigorous and scientifically-validated approach to testing and approving drugs, based on clinical trials and randomised controlled tests. In the finance and insurance industries, new entrants must comply with strict rules that protect the consumer. Capital adequacy and anti-money laundering requirements ensure the integrity of the financial system, supposedly. However, the tech industry has had no such framework. It has enjoyed "permissionless innovation" since the advent of the Internet fifty years ago. The open platform enabled entrepreneurs to try new things without getting permission from regulators or, indeed, anyone else.
  • Surveys often show that managers tend to consider compliance restrictions and a lack of resources as the main obstacles to innovation. This common wisdom suggests eradicating all constraints: by getting rid of rules and boundaries, creativity, and innovative thinking will thrive. Harvard Business Review research, however, challenged this wisdom and suggested that managers can innovate better by embracing constraints. HBR reviewed 145 empirical studies on the effects of constraints on creativity and innovation, and found that individuals, teams, and organisations alike benefit from a healthy dose of constraints. It is only when the constraints become too high that they stifle creativity and innovation.

 

July 2019

  • The Innovation 360 Group consulting firm analysed more than 1,000 companies in more than 60 countries to build an extensive database on innovation. They examined their respondents’ insights on how and why innovation projects prosper or fail. They found that executives can now choose from a variety of tools to measure and manage innovation. Organisations must take a holistic approach to change as they interpret what they’ve been through, their present situation and their likely future scenarios, and the implementation of “innovation analytics” can turn ephemeral information into concrete data.
 
 

December 2018

 

November 2018

 

October 2018

 

August 2018

  • Business innovation is when an organisation introduces new processes, services, or products to affect positive change in their business. This can include improving existing methods or practices, or starting from scratch. For Raconteur, the experience of innovation will vary greatly from company to company, but there are some common pitfalls which can, and should, be avoided. 

 

June-July 2018 

  • The Global Innovation Index 2018 focused on the theme of ‘Energising the World with Innovation’. Energy demand is reaching unprecedented levels as a result of a growing world population, rapid urbanisation, and industrialisation. Higher levels of technological and non-technological innovation are required to meet this demand, both on the production side of the energy equation (alternative sources, smart grids, and new advanced energy storage technologies) and on the consumption side (smart cities, homes, and buildings; energy-efficient industries; and transport and future mobility). Innovation plays key roles in addressing both sides of that equation.
  • GDPR will kill the innovation economy, warned Quartz, arguing that users are more keen to accept new privacy agreements from behemoths like Facebook than smaller companies, which could force more humble startups into extinction.

 

May 2018

  • Policymakers, non-government organisations, charities and entrepreneurs across the world are showing increasing interest in “social innovation” as a means of addressing various problems, from poverty and homelessness to environmental degradation. But what does the term actually mean, asked The Economist Intelligence Unit? 
  • As the concept of social innovation has gained currency, more efforts have been made to bring rigour to the field by defining the term more clearly and analysing best practices in its application. So far there have been few attempts to examine how countries can encourage and enable social innovation. That is the aim of an index and white paper, commissioned by The Nippon Foundation.

 

June 2016

  • The pace of innovation among global corporations, universities, government agencies and research institutions has reached record levels, according to Thomson Reuters' new report: '2016 State of Innovation Report: Disruptive Game-Changing Innovation'.This year's study finds a double-digit year-over-year surge in innovation growth, led by significant increases in the Medical Devices, Home Appliances, Aerospace and Defense, Information Technology, and the Oil & Gas sectors. The study also tracks global scientific literature and scholarly research that typically precedes discovery and the protection of innovation rights. Total scientific literature production, in contrast to overall patent volume, has posted a year-over-year decline, suggesting a potential slowdown in future innovation growth.
  • 'Why Europe lags on innovation' argued that the problem is not regulation; it’s Europe’s obsession with risk. Europe has driven global innovation for centuries. Modern science, enlightenment, the industrial revolution: This quest for knowledge, evidence, and new solutions has always been the basis of European prosperity. Today we ought to remember this legacy. Europe’s economy can only continue to compete globally if we invest in more innovation.
  • The fact that we have always hungered for innovation is evident from the history of human kind. This hunger for progress also explains why innovation is the driving force behind economic growth. As innovation transforms the way we live, work and do business, what can we learn from organisations that are harnessing its power most effectively? PwC has just launched its Spotlight on Innovation which curates the best of PwC's insights in this space. 

 

May 2016

  • Countries around the world are trying to emulate Silicon Valley’s success by trying to construct similar frameworks in the hope of building the next Google, according to INSEAD. There are three key policy elements that can mean the difference between success and failure. First, policies matter. From tax incentives to regulations and from grants to funding, the role of policies is crucial. Secondly, innovators need political stability, streamlined tax structures, inter-agency cooperation, supportive research institutions and fluid links between public researchers and private companies. Thirdly, risks need to be made attractive. Entrepreneurs and innovators need clear legal frameworks, clear fiscal frameworks and clear business frameworks to mitigate risk and investment confidently.

 

 

 

April 2016

 

 

  • Amsterdam won the European Commission’s title European Capital of Innovation 2016, ahead of Turin and Paris. Honourable mentions went to Berlin, Eindhoven, Glasgow, Milan, Oxford and Vienna. No central or eastern European cities made the shortlist.

 

 

 

 

 

March 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • The Fourth Industrial Revolution is study in contrasts, according to the GE Global Innovation Barometer. Optimism about the power of innovation to address some of society’s greatest challenges, mixed with fear of “Digital Darwinism” and becoming obsolete. A growing recognition of collaboration as a competitive advantage, combined with the empowerment of individuals who have access to an increasing array of digital tools. For a glimpse of how these trends are shaping the future of work and the global competitive landscape, GE asked several thought leaders to share their outlook on the digital revolution - and animators to bring those visions to life.

 

 

 

 

 

January 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

December 2015

 

  • Financial chiefs are more inclined to spend on research and development despite economic worries abroad. Some 36% of businesses planned to invest in R&D, up from 27% year earlier, the Grant Thornton International Business Report found when it asked US business leaders about their third-quarter sentiments. t the same time, North American CFOs are increasingly concerned about domestic impact from the slowing Chinese economy, which is affecting revenue growth expectations, according to Deloitte’s latest Global CFO Signals report.

 

 

 

  • Strategy&'s 2015 Global Innovation 1000 Study found that firms that favour a more global R&D footprint outperform their less globalised competitors on a variety of financial measures. But going global simply to be global isn’t the answer. Company leaders must clearly articulate, as part of the overall business strategy, the role that innovation plays in the company’s mission. For example, companies should first decide which geographic markets and customers are critical to their growth strategy and then determine where R&D resources need to reside in order to best understand and serve those markets. It’s those types of decisions that should inform the organization’s global R&D footprint.

 

November 2015

 

 

 

 

 

  • Valeo announced the results of its international innovation contest, which involved inviting students from around the world to play an active role in automobile innovation by designing the product or system that will create smarter, more intuitive cars by 2030. First prize went to the Chinese team "Falcon View" from Peking University. They came up with a new way for autonomous cars to detect their surroundings. Instead of using lasers, the team built a cheaper wheel-based system using a camera. Two teams tied for second place. A German team "Auto Gen Z" from Saarland University developed a connected system, reinforcing traffic safety. This alternative system effectively combines the three mirrors in a car into a single, wide-screen display. An Indian team "M.A.D" from Sri Aurobindo International Center of Education in Pondicherry also created a connected system reinforcing traffic safety. Based on satellite navigation, this advanced collision warning system alerts drivers, in real time, from potentially dangerous conditions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Research by strategy+business found that the geographic footprint of innovation is changing dramatically as research and development programs become more global. An overwhelming 94% of the world’s largest innovators now conduct elements of their R&D programmes abroad, according to the 2015 Global Innovation 1000 study, s+b's annual analysis of corporate R&D spending. These companies are shifting their innovation investment to countries in which their sales and manufacturing are growing fastest, and where they can access the right technical talent. Innovation spending has boomed in China and India since the 2008 study, when s+b first charted the global flows of corporate R&D spending. Collectively, in fact, more R&D is now conducted in Asia than in North America or Europe.

 

  • In The Imagination Gap, strategy+business warned that a future that hasn’t quite conformed to prior expectations is perhaps the most striking facet of Strategy&’s recent series on industry trends, an in-depth analysis of the prospects for 16 of the world’s bellwether sectors. A single conclusion is common to all of them: to profit - indeed, to survive - in 2015 and beyond, companies must not just adopt new, unanticipated, and more decentralised forms of digitisation and technological innovation, but must use them to reshape their business models. Companies in every industry are confronting an imagination gap between the established and safe - but rapidly aging - way of doing business and the opportunities and challenges of the technologies emerging today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August 2015

 

 

 

 

 

July 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

June 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 2015

 

 

 

 

  • In The eight essentials of innovation, McKinsey argued that strategic and organisational factors are what separate successful big-company innovators from the rest of the field.

 

 

 

March 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 2015

 

 

 

 

 

January 2015

 

 

 

 

 

2014

Selected innovation-related intelligence during 2014:

 

2012

  • In The Innovator’s Manifesto: Harnessing the power of disruption, Deloitte argued that while most people may think that innovation is a game of luck with no way to predict success, it can be much more predictable than business leaders think.
  • "Next Five in Five" is an IBM list of innovations that it claims have the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years.
  • There is a wide range of methods and strategies for fostering innovation. A collection of videos featured top innovators (the example below focusing on creating an innovative culture) across many industries, who articulated what innovation means to them.

 

2011

Key developments in 2011:

 

 

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