The Commons as a Different Driver for Innovation - David Bollier

This evening, I’d like to get innovative about how we think about innovation itself. The corporate cliché is to “think outside the box.” That is such an inside-the-box way of thinking! I say let’s get rid of the box! Tonight I want to talk about a new vector of innovation: how we’re going to manage our dwindling, finite natural resources and arrest the pathological growth imperatives of our economy while recovering a more sane, socially constructive way of life for human beings. Now there’s a radical innovation challenge!

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Data, information, knowledge, wisdom - visualized! Information Is Beautiful |

Just a think-piece really.

(I was recently visiting the office of the awesome design website Swiss Miss. Over snacks, they asked me to christen their “lunch guest wall” with a scribble. Caught in the headlights and feeling the pressure to be clever and impressive, my mind, of course, went blank. Spotless white. All I had was a noodle in my notepad about the increasing organisational structure of information and how it might relate to visualization. It had been a *long* flight to NY.)

I got kinda stuck with it. So I wanted to open it up and see what you thought.

This is by no means original thought. This structure has been around for a while. (In fact does anyone knows who first came up with it?). The only new thing is relating it to visuals. And giving it a nice font.

One interesting thing. If you visualise information without designing it, you often end up with a mush or a meaningless thicket. So if you can only really ‘design’ information, rather than visualize it, then maybe the term ‘information visualization’ is a bit of a misnomer?

Anyway, how does it look to you? Does it seem logical? Truthful? Do the definitions ring true? What could be the word for the visual depiction of wisdom? Does greater verticality imply greater meaning? Or can errors creep in?

Look forward to your ideas, feedback and corrections!

Link to Information Is Beautiful Blog

The Content Economy :Why traditional intranets fail today's knowledge workers - by Oscar Berg:

“Flexible access to people and resources can be enormously powerful in a world driven by changes that, more often than not, lead us in unanticipated directions…we need to become more adept at ‘capability leverage’ – finding and accessing complementary capabilities, wherever they reside in the world, to deliver more value.” - From “The Power of Pull” by J Hagel, J S Brown, L Davidson Businesses, in particular in the Western world, are becoming more and more knowledge-intensive with an increasing part of the workforce engaged in knowledge-based work. A study by The Work Foundation has estimated that we have a 30-30-40 workforce - 30 per cent in jobs with high knowledge content, 30 per cent in jobs with some knowledge content, and 40 per cent in jobs with less knowledge content. Knowledge work is about such things as solving problems, performing research and creative work, interacting and communicating with other people, and so on. Such work is by nature less predictable and repeatable than traditional industry work (transformational and transactional activities organized into repeatable processes). Both the inputs and outputs of knowledge work

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Innovating the 21st-Century University: It’s Time! by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

This lengthy and yet highly important article in my view forms the basis of a really important discussion that is now occuring globally. Here Tapschott and Williams offer a cogent and compelling plan for re-inventing universities for 21st Century. Read this article and forward it to every single person you know is involved in education. "Encyclopedias, newspapers, and record labels have a lot in common. They all are in the business of producing content. They recruit, manage, and compensate capable producers. Their products are composed of atoms — books, papers, CDs, DVDs — and are costly to create and distribute. Their products are proprietary, and they take legal action against those who infringe their intellectual property. Because they create unique value, their customers pay them, and they have revenue. Their business is possible because of scarcity: quality news, information, knowledge, learning, art.

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Latest CLF Chairmans Report

Ralph Kerle, Executive Chairman, CLF Report

From our on-going research with business leaders and organisations, it seems Australia at least is beginning to look forward. Whilst comments with CEO's have been guarded, there is a degree of optimism returning to the Australian economy at least..

Revenues are definitely down in most industry sectors and most organisations we have interviewed.  Some areas such as executive education are down as much as 50% to 60%, events and catering seem to be down as much as 40%; the general average being somewhere around 20%. High end products such as white goods can no longer rely on just brand to sustain their revenue as prices drop and the market becomes highly competitive. The jury is still out on viable business models in the social networking and digital media worlds. Of all the organisations we have interviewed, most have reviewed their business plans and operational strategies in light of the global financial crisis, made the hard decisions around the medium term viability of their products and services and their people - who to retain and who to let go.

Having done this, our research indicates CEO's and leaders are now in the process of reflecting and exploring how and what way to go forward. Where should they invest their time, resources and cash in what most of them see as un-chartered and stormy markets ahead? How do they build a management innovation capability that will allow them to surface ideas quickly and prototype inexpensively? How do they skill their senior leaders and middle management to think and act creatively in this new world?

The Creative Leadership Forum's national research project ‘Is Australian Management Creative and Innovative?’ completed in 2008 revealed that whilst 81% of Australians believe they are creative and innovative, less than half believe their organisations are creative.

So herein lies the challenge - how do we make organisations, themselves, creative?

With that challenge in mind, we developed what we understand to be a world first, the Creative Leadership Index (CLI) an internal research/survey tool enabling senior management to obtain a holistic snapshot of the organization as a creative ecology.

The CLI does this by asking employees to respond to a series of 30 questions around organisational culture, environment and practices and the creative mindsets its employees bring to those concepts. This results in a Management Innovation Report outlining the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for the organization to transform itself into a high powered continually innovating operation - a vital strategic capability for any organization in this time of uncertainty generally.

If innovation is a core value for your organization, the CLI enables you to understand how that core value is currently perceived and functioning and what needs to happen to develop its full potential.

The most important learning for us through the design and testing of the CLI has been every single organization is systemically and uniquely creative. Every single organization has its own DNA. Therefore, it is vital to understand and reflect on that DNA because it is after all what makes the organization successful whilst also holding the key to its failure. Looking at external organisational models or theories is of some value simply to understand what exists. However, attempting to copy or impose external models on an already existing DNA is fraught with danger!!

We are delighted to announce the launch of the Creative Leadership Index and would be happy to discuss it with you or your organisation at any time.

To learn more,

Contact: Grant Crossley, Chief Executive, The Creative Leadership Forum

e: gc@thecreativeleadershipforum.com

m: +61 (0) 408 844 009