Connecting dots is an end-to-end story combining the 10 most read articles on WAI blog over the last week. This article therefore articulates experts viewpoints with readers interest to build one single story for change.

From developed to developing countries, a global need for an equal, free and sustainable model for societies has risen at the heart of innovation discussions. Politics, economics and regulatory frameworks are lagging behind communities of change agents who keep connecting their knowledge and experiences to give social change a reality. Yet, without global platforms to build and link the competencies needed for systemic change, the innovation discourses experts and practitioners develop remain stymied by a lack of political willingness and economical adaptation that would foster long term benefits for all.

Setting a framework for global change

The rise of global citizens enables innovation to reach talents and projects so far left unexplored by massive corporations looking to invest in revenue driven initiatives. A human sense of change has taken on board the approach of using data, analytics and community knowledge to build meaningful conversations between entrepreneurs and the communities they serve.

From economic indicators to global visions of citizenship, the world seen through the lenses of a shared need for change enlightens concepts and initiatives that are taking innovation debates a little further, one question at a time. Even though knowledge barriers remain in our approach to economic analysis and information sharing, including regulation, a greater sense of community is leading experts to consider challenges under varying angles, aspiring for a richer reality to explore. As a result, knowledge and experiences are connected to share life lessons that can drive the rise of effective platforms able to deliver change with concrete results. Halfway between leadership and community-based decision making, innovation strategies enable to build two way conversations to consider a greater variety of data and take into account social demands emanating from the crowd.

Read more: “We Are Innovation because we are Global Citizens“, May 2016

People are therefore writing, curating and sharing knowledge based on their expertise. This community of innovation is the basis of this blog, writing a daily story of change as seen through the eyes and words of thousands experts and innovation practitioners across the globe.

weareinnovation.org curates and connects innovation trends and analysis as shared by experts and practitioners on social and professional networks. By consistently analyzing and storytelling innovation through strategic formats, we intend to catalyze change in the real world by delivering management publications for innovation professionals. This on-going strategic plan is a two way conversation between experts and readers who continuously express their opinion online by outlining the reference articles and projects that drive innovation, and pointing out those areas of interest which best define the change they want to see in the real world, beyond the virtual communications shared online.

Read more: “On the go: who is innovation?“, May 2016

As people centricity drives discussions, the social impact of innovation is analyzed with greater attention and details. This approach, which consists in delivering the best solutions tailored to specific social issues by using the local ideas and resources as well as innovative technologies, showcases the attitude and behaviors needed to bring change on a systemic level.

Social innovation has become an increasingly driving trend among innovation experts, professionals and specialists. As companies increase their efforts to bring “people”, whether these are customers, employees, leaders, board members, at the heart of their values, developing innovative projects to lead to a better society is drawing nearer. Social innovation trends as shared on WAI networks cover three major themes: answering to human needs, protecting the environment and creating new sustainable and social models with innovation.

Read more: “Social innovation delivering concrete change“, July 2015

Around those critical changes, regulation and economies struggle to define aligned strategies that could facilitate innovation on a wider community basis. Progress is being made by targeting key technology driver and supporting startups to re-invent approaches to market.

In an article from La Tribune, we interestingly learn that France is the first European nation in terms of start-up creation. As Delphine Cuny explains, French minister of economy stated that “we need to define a European digital strategy, unifying rules”. That may indeed be welcome, especially as on the other side of the Channel, Ofcom starts to plan IoT support. As Warwick Ashford explains for Computer Weekly, “Ofcom has pledged to work with the government, the information commissioner’s office, other regulators and industry to support the progress of IoT nationally and internationally.”

Read more: “Leading through change, Politics and Economics“, March 2015

As a result, analysts remind core values and requirements to enable innovation policies to build the appropriate ecosystem where new ideas can bring tangible results.

In order to create an ecosystem where social priorities are addressed through a diverse approach, innovation needs to:

1. Generate fair, transparent and open discussions which include a variety of viewpoints and expertise to define intelligent change for politics and economics

2. Develop a new generation of politics and economics where honesty, trust and diversity enable to generate smarter and bigger impact

3. Foster adaptability through creative innovation that properly identifies and uses strengths and weaknesses of legacy systems while shifting towards value creating models and ecosystems to offset global, national, regional and local inequalities while generating sustainable growth.

Read more: “Turning the tables“, December 2015

Communities to bridge the gap between theory and action

Controversial yet advanced developments also highlight a two dimensional progress of technologies which follow a fast pace ROI target while underestimating the human questions they raise. AI is an example of extreme rapid progress, both in human expertise and technological deployments, overlooking the necessary human values and long term economic impact that it may generate.

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“, September 2015

To bridge this gap, innovation leaders see themselves driving communities of knowledge which are now able to include customers. From this connectedness of experiences, entrepreneurs are able to combine synergies to define systemic solutions.

As emergencies for change are pressing key market players to rethink collectively new ecosystems for growth, entrepreneurs and leaders develop new communication strategies to create communities around customers and skills to answer their needs. By reaching out to customers, such knowledge networks are able to transform organizations from the inside to emulate a commonly shared success story. Connecting experiences allows entrepreneurs and leaders to combine synergies in efficiently reaching commonly identified goals.

Read more: “Market Roadmap: Why Entrepreneurs connect experiences to innovate“, April 2016

From a financial viewpoint, the instability generated by current economic conditions is driving experts to rethink their overall approach to indicators and analysis while taking into account new systemic changes occurring across countries and sectors. These new dynamics forces them to rethink economics reasoning beyond short term profitability.

As economic conditions keep predicting unstable environments for the launch of new businesses, products and services, financial analysts and economics experts describe how micro and macro changes are forcing innovation to reach targets that go beyond profitability. Instead, new initiatives show that creating higher value through policies, optimized margin management and a smart approach to data and analytics enable to fuel new ideas for change. As a result, economics experts shape a new reasoning scheme that enables innovators to come up with new ecosystems and models that reinvent our approach to economic growth.

Read more: “Innotrends: Rethinking financial ecosystems for innovation“, April 2016

A need for platforms to organize change

One of the key changes economists need to take into account while calculating performances is the changing face of work. Alternative business models and the rise of freelance workers are changing the rules of games and bringing even more need to adapt to changing economic conditions.

A growing number of freelance workers are creating alternative business models to help companies reach new ideas and skills. In the meantime, organizations still struggle to create the necessary space for women to reach C-Level. This comes as we are interestingly able to learn more through data and adapted algorithms. Saving costs remains as an only driver for growth, paving way for chatbots to replace human interactions when other leaders remind the richness of humanity and the multiplicity of cultures as a way to learn from each others. In between, entire nations and teams are left in need of clearer visions and messages to guide them, with the inevitable tensions and potential breakout this expectation creates. A question remains: what direction to give them?

Read more: “Daily Pick: 8 growing trends questioning the future of organizations“, May 2016

In the end, the global efforts generated by innovation is representative of a widely shared need for change which still struggles to properly organize itself. The ideas, the talents, the models and the willingness can be easily picked up and analyzed in a variety of situations and solutions. Yet, this all wave of human centric innovation still misses an accurate systemic approach, or effective platform, to bring changes in people daily lives.

Innovation helps us generate fresher views on critical realities. We are inspired by social innovation which now drives initiatives into organizations and businesses. Even political and economical areas have identified social needs as necessary requirements for sustainable growth. Regulatory, infrastructure and technical barriers still restrain our global intelligence to fully reach its potential, but cultures within companies are paving the way for communities to develop common visions and skills to solve global issues. Time is counted for change to happen, especially with regards to the environmental challenges ahead of us. As a result, entrepreneurs reach out to each others to combine experiences to generate synergies. Experts from a variety of sectors collaborate to rethink our financial ecosystems. Diversity is identified as a necessary skill to address upcoming innovation challenges. Eventually, it is the very place of humans in driving their own destiny that is questioned by our overall story of innovation. 

Read more: “The Loop: Our story towards intelligent innovation“, April 2016

And you, what ecosystems and platforms would you need for systemic change?

weareinnovation.org  has released a management report combining experts and analysts thought leadership to turn diversity into a success story. Find out more here.