The learning path to innovation

“Connecting dots” is a weekly story based on 10 most read articles from weareinnovation.org

Innovation requires learning. By constructing connected global knowledge communities, innovation experts and analysts encourage individuals and organizations to engage with a wider variety of thoughts and ideas to define intelligent change. Those global communities need to include the best of our entrepreneurship talents while smartly questioning the framework needed to foster a new ecosystem where people-centricity drives innovation. With humans at heart, new strategies and projects are able to reach to a diverse, open and equal crowd eager to build sustainable solutions for global issues.

Defining intelligent change

Innovation implies the ability to build and implement change. In our complex economic, social and political global ecosystem, this collaborative construction requires us to learn from experts and leaders. Reading is identified as a necessary learning activity to drive sensible change.

As a learning and inspiring activity, reading is encouraged by entrepreneurs, leaders and business experts to enable individuals to develop new approaches and ideas. Not only does it offer the space and stand back to integrate knowledge, it also offers the space to think and feel the emotions we sometimes miss in daily routine to apprehend situations with a fresher view. Because reading connects readers and writers’ experiences into a constant dialog defining leadership, innovation and change, developing thoughts through different angles and varying voices, words, is a key requirement to continuously nurture creativity and willingness to solve growingly intricate issues.

Read more: We Are Innovation because we read, WAI November 2015

Our connected knowledge world offers an inspiring volume of ideas and thoughts from engaged innovation practitioners who seek to define intelligent solutions while consistently outlining the risks generated by our legacy approaches to change. By doing so, our global conversation on innovation leads to realize the collaborative opportunity we have to drive towards a sustainable and equal society with a diverse set of knowledges and skills that need further economic cooperation and political commitment to generate value.

Although countries and governments are making tangible progress to define a legal framework around Big Data, press and media remind how looming mass-surveillance threatens our privacy and freedom in the online world. In the meantime, with the arrival of the COP21 in Paris at the end of the month, analysts outline hopes and risks around countries commitment to change, while presenting partnerships and initiatives that could help gain further impact.

A myriad of examples show how legacy framework stymies change and contrives innovators into legal and regulatory discussions before they generate tangible benefits to society. Although strategies exist to prepare such legal battle upfront, the intensity of their fights highlights the need to rethink innovation framework so ideas can be intelligently developed to deliver optimized value for all.

AirBnB and Uber have shown in the recent weeks how difficult it is to develop a sharing economy with regards to local, global, national, regional laws that necessarily affect their business. Raphael Minder from The New York Times reminds the amount of the difficulty for AirBnB to launch in Europe: “In July, the house-sharing start-up received its first fine in Europe, of €30,000, or about $38,500, for violating a 2012 law introduced by the regional government of Catalonia, whose capital is Barcelona, that forbids renting individual rooms for tourism purposes”. Further in his article, he highlights the contrast with cities such as Paris or San Francisco which have enabled AirBnB to operate in their cities and enter local tourism market.

Becoming global entrepreneurs

Business experts stress the importance of resiliency and ability to adapt in such a complex environment. Entrepreneurs face daily challenges and issues that require a great deal of energy to maintain success over time.

Business experts are also highlighting the need to thrive under difficult conditions in order to reach and maintain success over time. This is a view shared by Project Eve: “Not registering the patents, hiring of non-performing employees, etc. are some more additions this list can afford to add. The life of an entrepreneur looks impressive and easy from the exterior. But it demands some great doing to earn and maintain the success as an entrepreneur”.

Read more: Business experts seeking intelligent innovation, WAI November 2015

By jointly elaborating plans and strategies for developing technologies, experts and analysts unable us to understand critical areas that need further thinking and learning before reaching mass market impact. Although driven by highly discussed topics such as the Internet of Things and Big Data, Artificial Intelligence remains a complex trend rising interesting questions on human place in technology.

Although AI brings a strong appetite to market, the dependencies surrounding the delivery of adequate services and solutions seem to outweigh the business model maturity. With an on-going debate on long term value add of such services with regards to the economic changes AI may generate, and questions on human place in technology, experts and analysts provide a dynamic market overview of automation, machine learning and neural network researches, with the Internet of Things and Big Data as key enabler for future AI services.

Read more: The human questions behind AI business models, WAI September 2015

To enable such questions to find relevant answers, businesses and organizations have started simplifying and flattening their hierarchies, facilitating connections between ideas and knowledge across business units and partnership ecosystem. As a result, employee and leader engagement have the opportunity to define a joint story to defend to market, with people-centricity and human value at the heart of their strategies.

As experts outline, the future of work offers multi-dimensional connectivity between individuals and teams usually kept apart in current organizations. Because hierarchy, workplace and collaboration tools are evolving, companies need to investigate the value of constructive thinking to develop innovation while engaging both leaders and employees to create value, building cultures where change is positive and being good a necessity.

Constructive thinking necessitates that we put humans and people back at the heart of strategies. By doing so, innovation experts and analysts seek to foster the multiplication of creative ideas and technologies that would help answer social needs.

Urging us to consider a constructive future, innovation analysts and experts seek to tackle complex issues by multiplying ideas and models which put human at the heart of their strategies. In order to remove barriers to innovation, organizations should align their objectives to apply new concepts beyond technologies and drive their culture towards a growing social future.

Read more: Daily Pick: 12 ideas to challenge innovation, WAI November 2015

Human centricity at heart

Beyond the people centric approach to innovation that experts and analysts require, it is the connectivity of people generated ideas and solutions that underpins the rise of a critical knowledge community driving towards intelligent change.

While past values are continuously challenged to define better solutions, at times through difficult compromises, social links enable individuals to gain further credit in organizations. With global warming as a ringing alert for all, the world is slowly shifting towards flexible, interconnected and community based knowledge sharing to create intelligent solutions, including the development of machines and systems which can learn from failures and mistakes.

Read more: Daily pick: 10 ways the world is changing, WAI November 2015

Such an idea connectivity seems to lead to a higher level of creativity, which is needed to tackle growingly complex challenges. This creative knowledge shared across borders and expertise areas enable to foster the next generation of ideas that will define intelligent change.

Embracing the opportunity to connect experiences and knowledge, experts and analysts highlight a global thinking framework to create the right ecosystem for a digitally led growth. While new services and business models disrupt our legacy approach to innovation, our connected professional and individual creativity appears as a key enabler of intelligent change.

Read more: The Connected Creativity, WAI November 2015

In order to reach out to the best ideas and talents available in this knowledge community, diversity is critically needed in organizations, teams and individual attitudes so as to connect the best people with the best projects. By considering diversity beyond its ethnical, religious are gender spheres, we enable individuals to build intelligent change by identifying and sharing their unique talents and creativity with the world.

Companies and organizations tend to focus on diversity as an indicator of gender and ethnic integration, rolling-out a marketing and communication speech to prove they comply with a justified customer requirement to encourage diversity. Although critical to participate in shaping a diverse workforce, this transformation should be followed-up by enabling diversity to generate the creativity innovation depends on to answer human centric needs.

Read more: Diversity as a success story, WAI November 2015

Innovation experts and analysts encourage to define change with a learning by doing and sharing attitude that can be shared in knowledge communities. Accelerating change is possible by connecting experiences and ideas while driving them towards identified global goals and benefits. This learning path leading to smarter innovation is seen as a critical people-centric experiment to build both the framework and ecosystem our ideas and organizations need to challenge global issues.