Enterprise Innovation Ecosystem Metaphor

From his iPhone, he tapped up a full-screen visual.

A large cruise ship (with well-honed product and service teams) sails the wide oceans and is serviced at one archipelago by a fleet of small boats, coming from and operated by residents of many small islands, who navigate out to sea (but not too far) to meet and exchange with the mothership. Xu, Chenyang (TTB US) Siemens.

The challenge of optimizing efficiency and growth in the business units of a large established enterprise is directly at odds with the requirements for nimble agility and productive friction in the corporate or satellite centers responsible for fueling innovation. John Seely Brown and John Haley III applaud the combination of "productive friction" and dynamic specialization as the new means for connection and coordination. Corporate innovation teams are searching for ways to make innovation more "open."

Similar dynamics operate in established educational institutions. Disciplinary rigor establishes intellectual prestige - the primary currency in academic institutions. At the same time, real-world relevance depends on continuing connections, collaborations and congruence with the problems and opportunities of business, community and government entities. Rapid iteration on these ever-changing interfaces serves as a catalyst to maintaining intelligence about opportunities and conditions that inform direction for the mothership.

Media X is Stanford University's catalyst for interdisciplinary interaction among thought leaders at Stanford and change agents in industry - on questions about people and information technology. With questions posed by industrial partners, Media X initiatives tap the expertise of Stanford research laboratories across the entire campus to ignite cognitive bonfires and conduct concept-proving research. Results are transferred to the academic and industrial motherships for further development, refinement and assimilation.

American Mayors Take On Economic Viability of Cities in 2030

By 2030 cities will need programs that provide infrastructure for jobs that are no longer tied to location but are inextricably interdependent on the global economy. Ubiquitous communications and the knowledge/service economy are game changers for urban leaders. This narrated version of a presentation to Mayors of American cities by Cisco’s Dr. Norman J Jacknis, Director IBSG Public Sector, describes the challenge of assuring the economic viability of cities in 2030: http://vimeo.com/9261722

Investments That Bring the Benefits Home

Technology-based business development initiatives use local, regional and/or national resources to improve the global economic competitive position. Regional development, science cities, technopolis programs, business clusters, and e-clusters have been financed with hopes of improving employment and increasing revenues.

But the results have surprised many. High-potential talent has gone abroad with new business relationships and stayed there. Profit imperatives have driven employment opportunities overseas. The information age and the knowledge revolution have changed the game for technology-based regional development. Flat-world relationships over high-bandwidth channels are changing on a real-time basis. The former concepts of infrastructure support have a new context.

Home-based resources are spent to encourage businesses to compete in the global economy. The challenge, to policy makers and program leaders, is to capture local returns on the investments made locally intended to reach globally. The Innovation Ecosystems Initiative is studying flows of people and resources in technology-based companies - to identify the infrastructure requirements, inflection points and succdess metrics - and to build a new model to guide policy and intervention decisions. Professionals from Paris, Finland, Norway, Malaysia, Tokyo, Britain, Barcelona, Paris, and the United Arab Emirates agree that new concept are needed.

Launch Workshop - Media X at Stanford University

Innovation Ecosystems Benkyo-Kai

The word, "benkyo-kai,"aptly describes a new initiative focused on Innovation Ecosystems. In Japanese tradition, benkyo-kai - study groups - have formed around key technological initiatives. We've formed this one around innovation itself, and the ecosystem conditions in which it thrives.

Optimizing the catalytic impact of public and private investments in technology-based development has been a focus in many countries and regions for several decades. Some experiments of innovation ecosystems – science parks, technology parks, business parks, or business clusters – are heralded as successes; some disappear from awareness; others are deemed failures.Some say we're now living in a global "stimulus economy." Current stimulus programs targeting innovation usher in a new wave of public investment in new experiments. Yet, a clear understanding of success (and failure) factors and metrics for regional information communication technology (ICT) experiments with international interdependencies has not been developed.

We seek to change this with the Innovation Ecosystems Initiative, which focuses on a data-driven analysis and visualization approach. An international group of scientists with expertise in network analysis, information visualization, data mining and integration, regional development, technology transfer, and reputation development propose a comparative study of well-established and new programs for technology-based economic development in ICT.

Four regions - Beijing, China; Tokyo, Japan; Tampere, Finland; and Silicon Valley, USA – have been selected as the starting points for the study.

A Media X Workshop on March 5, 2010, introduced the Innovation Ecosystems Benkyo-Kai to American, Canadian, Asian, and European collaborators, with interests in government, educaiton and business interventions.

We welcome data partners, analysis partners and community-of-practice partners to this benkyo-kai. Contact: martha.russell@stanford.edu