Life long learning has become a pre-requisite for change makers looking to harness the power of digital and connected innovation. The recent most popular social posts shared on WAI networks confirms the need of a knowledge savvy community to intelligently develop goals, strategies, platforms and actions to adapt a fast changing ecosystem. What are the tools and ideas at our disposal to do so?

As mentioned in our latest round opening, it becomes essential to develop sensible and meaningful innovation that considers human, environmental, social impacts beyond commercial and business benefits. Connected technologies enable us to share knowledge anywhere, searching for sustainable collaborations and sharing intelligent calls for change. Because visualization tools now enable us to assess our systemic impact, it becomes critical to learn with shared purposes, creating new career paths and innovation methodologies that adapt innovation strategies to upcoming business disruption led by automation and predictive analytics.

#1 Leaving infinite growth behind

<<According to the agroecology wiseman, tomorrow’s revolution will be led by the “bottom”. “Civil society is forging a new imagination in front of a system looking for a new breathe, whose decline translates into unemployment increase, poverty and numerous inequalities. Social innovations multiply themselves in remote territories, within ecology, renewable energies, education… they are as many experimentations able to sustain our future”, as Pierre Rabhi explains.>>

Lire plus: “Pierre Rabhi appelle à quitter le culte de la croissance indéfinie“, La Relève et La Peste

Innovating beyond currently known barriers and cultural reluctance to change necessitates to develop value that exceeds commercial and business scopes. Through our global innovation story, we have defined an operational plan to develop human values for innovation, this can also help reshape initiatives towards humanly and environmentally respectful objectives.

 

#2 Learning outside the classroom

<<But the broader trend is away from traditional classroom-based teaching: online distance learning has mushroomed in recent years, enabling students to gain both work-based qualifications and full degrees without attending a physical institution.>>

Read more: “Learning outside the classroom“, Kim Thomas, Raconteur

The ability to constantly learn and include differing thinking patterns into our own reasoning is essential in developing further ideas diversity for innovation. Although technologies play a role in exposing students, and more generally speaking, learners to a wider and more flexibly accessible knowledge, it is important to use and develop human skills such as creativity and diversity.

#3 Calling for intelligent change

<<To those who cannot help dreaming that, maybe, it is not too late to change our direction. And that is already a start to change the world. To those who consider our destiny as a common good. That solidarity is resistance as well as constructing a common future. That together, we are an immense strength that nothing can stop.>> 

Lire (et soutenir!) plus: https://www.appel-des-solidarites.fr

Our latest Daily Pick also explained how smart change makers call on other change makers to drive intelligent change.

 

#4 Searching sustainable collaboration

<<Our contribution is an innovative aggregator which extensively concentrates on solutions that focus on sustainable development and social, environmental responsibility and which, therefore, facilitate research and learnings to catalyze actions.” >>

Lire plus: “We4planet”, Ulule

Connecting our global creativity to address complex challenges enables more ideas and talents to collaborate and drive change.

 

#5 Understanding our systemic impact

Our latest review of legal and environmental innovations outlines the limits of industrializing nature and questions the benefits of technologies for agriculture.

#6 Learning with purpose

<<It’s a disconnect that understandably makes consumers skeptical about the true nature of a social purpose business. As a consequence, the transition to authentically for-good businesses, markets and economies stalls.>>

Read more: “The Right Way – and Wrong Way – to Embrace Purpose as the New Way to Do Business“, Coro Strandberg, Sustainable Brands

In our latest operational plan to become the next exponential catalyst, we remind the importance of making sure your human values are no marketing. The plan also helps you build human values and thinking framework to drive exponential business models based on diversity and systemic innovation.

 

#7 Learning to create

<<Many opportunities to add great value don’t already exist; don’t be afraid to create them.” >>

Read more: “What I wish I knew: Five Insights from Women Leaders“, MIT Sloan Management School

Our latest operational plan outlines the ability to build change from scratch as one of the human values for exponential catalysts. We have also detailed the actions to drive within businesses and organizations to lead such “change from scratch”.

 

#8 Learning through design fiction

<< Design fiction finds itself as a prolongation of design thinking, with the same usage of creativity methodologies and conception tools.>>

Lire plus: “Après le design thinking, the design fiction“, Entreprendre

Framing an intelligent view of tomorrow necessitates to generate innovation from innovation, hence adapting development processes to individual needs and views.

 

#9 Developing automation-ready skills

<<In the current set up, it is estimated that there are around 40% to 80% manual activities that will be automated in the next year or two, which is a huge undertaking and will require a large number of automation engineers. But they won’t be working alone; agile project managers, analysts and automation development engineers will also play a big role.>>

Read more: “Automation generates high profile jobs – and they’re up for grabs“, Xavier Chelladurai, Information Management

Defining intelligent and human centric technological solutions will also require human diversity and creativity. We have created a tool based on our global innovation story to develop virtuous circles based on human differences so they can add value to technologies.

#10 Learning for adaptive strategies

<<By focusing on immature spaces, you can get ahead of competitors by first employing a rapid-yield, impatient strategy and then later switching to a more patient strategy with delayed rewards.>>

Read more: “Harnessing the secret structure of innovation“, Martin Reeves, Thomas Fink, Ramiro Palma, and Johann Harnoss, MIT Sloan Management Review

Recreating approaches to business strategies is necessary in a digitally disrupted environment where past ways of sharing information collapse in front of horizontally driven knowledge sharing communities.

#11 Learning from inspiring leaders

<<In the end, Ideo identified six basic vectors that it says are instrumental to an innovative, adaptive company: Purpose, experimentation, collaboration, empowerment, looking out (i.e. staying informed about what’s happening in the industry), and refinement (the ability to successfully execute new ideas).>>

Read more: “IDEO studied innovation in 100+ companies – here’s what it found“, Katharine Schwab, FastCo-Design

https://plus.google.com/+WeAreInnovationblog/posts/88k2hnr5HpG

Our latest analysis of readers’ mid-term priorities for innovation also outlined how current technology developments seek to empower the intelligent crowd. In addition, we have outlined actions you can take to partner with the digital crowd through our Loop#2.

#12 Learning with customers

“If you are struggling to innovate, customers are a great resource”

Dimensional diversity allows you to connect your operational teams with the customer at all stages of discussion by breaking silos, confronting ideas and viewpoints, creating synergies with customers and addressing commonly shared issues. You can find a detailed plan to develop this innovation tool in our latest report: “Human centricity and systemic innovation“.

#13 Learning through predictive analytics

<<When it comes to manage risks and opportunities, leading organizations with predictive analytics are able to assess options from every angle and predict outcome with confidence>>

Read more: “What is the power of predictive analytics?” DR4WARD

Varying innovation angles proves beneficial to increase innovation capabilities. Developing diversity as a management practice can help you leverage inner and outer diversity within your teams to understand issues and challenges from unprecedented viewpoints and develop your unique knowledge value for your customers.

Do not miss our latest Open Think L@b where we discuss the definition of an intelligent framework for the digital economy. Follow the blog by e-mail to receive the operational plan answering this open question at this end of this round.

 

weareinnovation.org writes the innovation story that thousands of innovation experts around the world constantly develop and share on WAI social networks. Browse our knowledge library and read our management reports to learn more.

Photograph: Nirina Photography