Think Piece, Birmingham City University, November 2012 Cross Innovation – A Perspective From Birmingham “By the term cross innovation we understand a process by which creative industries share information, collaborate and work with other growth sectors to promote new thinking” “Innovation is the successful implementation of new ideas” (Rothwell) “For every subtle and complicated question there is a perfectly simple and straightforward answer, which is wrong” H.L. Mencken I thought it a good time, prompted by the short study, the cases, the Manifesto, the Study Visits and the thinking we’ve done on the next steps to set out some initial thoughts on impressions on what we’ve all done so far. I think one way of doing this is by looking again at the four themes. Spaces For Cross Innovation (1) We are trying to tackle silo thinking and help develop spaces where people with ideas can mingle. Luca and Patrick called this “innovation as a remix”, Jesse pointed to Fab Labs and we all have creative city quarters for our “bohemian” creative and science parks for technology. Ecosystems for cross innovation seems the concept to catch the eye. So -‐ how can we get cross innovation within and across these spaces and indeed do we need to create new spaces to catalyse cross innovation? Brokerage Roles (1) Innovation needs frontier men (women!) to go out and seek new opportunities (Manifesto) and brokerage is about exchanging ideas within sectors and across boundaries such as at TED type events. We have our own events such as Picnic, design focussed events, music and culture and digital. 1
Smart Finance (1) “We are in a new age of debt finance and we need to have new thinking to drive our smart specialisation strategies” (Interreg IVC moderator, Open Days, Brussels). It’s a tough ask. Crowd Funding and Venture Capital investment in new ideas/ventures seem the key drivers here. Culture-‐Based Innovation (1) – Unleashing New Ideas Into Other Businesses This is the catalytic effect of the CCIs into other businesses and our contribution to support the growth agenda (smart, sustainable jobs, EU 2020 Policy). The Manifesto states “Shift happens” paraphrasing Schumpeter. The case studies give some good insights – Fitsme and the iPhone healthcare app are examples. So, if this is the picture so far – what are the trends we can see? Spaces For Cross Innovation (2) There seems to be two approaches: 1. New spaces -‐ characterised by Fab Labs and spaces such as MediaLab Prado Madrid. 2. Ecosystems for cross innovation characterised by Moritzplatz Berlin. Maybe the discussion should be on which strategy is best for your city? Of course a combination of both is feasible (desirable even, Porter – World Class Clusters, Landry -‐ “creative milieu” would support this view). One idea to test spaces is the setting up of “Spillover Labs” – university-‐based teams combining a range of experts to address “challenges” presented by companies & organisations seeking fresh insights into complex city-‐based problems. This problem/issue-‐based approach also fits well into hack days – getting a diverse range of people into a space to work on a problem together. 2
Brokerage Roles (2) These are the people who link ideas and people to support cross innovation. Perhaps they are under the radar of policy makers? They tend to always be in a coffee shop or en route to somewhere else. They don’t do committees. Maybe we have a picture of who is a broker in your city? We should by now be able to do this – although they may not be able to attend local planning/implementation groups. Jesse Belgrave pointed us towards TED. Picnic presents interesting topics from around the world, with a city focus, providing meeting spaces for entrepreneurs to mingle and connect -‐ all on a clear theme. A good recipe. So maybe we need to think of our own mini Picnics for cross innovation? Smart Finance (2) – Moving From Grants To Investment In terms of where we are maybe this is for a little bit later? However we need to start thinking now of how we can best support cross innovation ideas seeded in the project. There could be several approaches short term: 1) Local support schemes for the creative industries – we should make a case for cross innovation. 2) Procurement – can we promote cross innovation thinking in how cities procure goods and services – maybe based on a key city project? 3) Vouchers – a case for a cross innovation voucher to catalyse CCI and another growth sector. Medium term we need to bring in ideas on crowd funding and also identify and inform the brokers who support VC type investments in our cities. Long term – or maybe not that long term! We need to inform local policy makers from 2014 onwards on Structural Funds – the LIG should be the place to do this. 3
Culture-‐Based Innovation (2) This is where “design thinking” should be the key – looking at issues holistically. The city matrices, showing cross overs between creative sectors and other growth sectors, should have given us a taste of where the opportunities and needs lie. Which sectors can best connect to address these issues? The interactions may not be 1:1. They may be multiples of creative industry specialisms interacting with multiples of science-‐based specialisms. However, we may want to start 1:1 (1 creative+ 1 science based) and then expand. Michel Zappa gave insights into this at Picnic 2012. We can use “challenges” and competitions to start this, discussions within local implementation groups on key issues and opportunities, and meeting brokers over a coffee of course, not in a meeting! Author: Steve Harding, Cross Innovation Project Director, Research Innovation and Enterprise, Birmingham City University, B42 2SU. November 2012
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