Catherina van Delden, founder and CEO of a German company, Innosabi, has some pretty impressive examples of what can be done. Products co-created by a growing community include foods, cosmetics and fashion accessories – and are proving to be extremely popular when they finally hit the shelves! So much so that Catherine and her team were awarded a Ministerial prize last year for the most innovative e-business start-up in Germany. In this video interview she talks about the company – and you can find out more at their websites: www.unseraller.de  and www.innosabi.com.

One example is the legal profession –for centuries a highly regulated professional field in which change came slowly, if at all. Indeed, much of the image of law firms is about stability and consistency. But here as in so many other sectors there is change – and opportunity for those organizations which can embrace and pursue innovation. The sector is waking up to the need for change – driven partly by growing competition, partly by rising costs, partly by de-regulation. And there is plenty of activity – for example, the ‘Financial Times’ runs an annual series of awards for the most innovative law firms!

In a series of short reports (http://www.codexx.com/knowledge.php) Alastair Ross of Codexx discusses some of the ways in which legal firms have been able to take advantage of some of these opportunities in the area of process innovation.
It forms part of a larger research project which we’re involved with – and we’ll be reporting more in due course. Watch this space!

http://www.aimresearch.org/Publications/executive-briefing

Most Innovation Lab activity takes place at a country level but we try and hold an annual conference where we can share at an international level some of what so going on. This time there were around 50 delegates from 10 countries and a wide range of industrial and academic presentations. Highlights included:

• A presentation by Pedro Oliveira (MIT Sloan Management School & Católica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics) on ‘Users as service innovators’ which had some fascinating examples of patients and carers developing radical innovations around serious diseases

• Some insights from Jamie Wilkie about how Fuijitsu innovates its innovation process with some interesting ideas on Innovation coaches and other support roles.

• Another ‘postcard’ from the front line, this time from Ulrich Wenger (Rolls-Royce) about their experience with ‘Innovation, the arduous journey from idea to product realization’.

• Some experience with the new world of co-creation of innovation shared by Catherina Van Delden of Innosabi (see the video interview with her for more detail)

• Updates on research from Fiona Lettice (UK) and Pekka Berg (Finland)

• And – to make sure everyone kept physically and mentally moving, two interactive workshops, one on the Global Service Jam and another on masculine/feminine aspects of the innovation process!

Like all good laboratories the event provided both some new data and ideas but also raised a whole new set of questions to work on. Some of these will no doubt be reported at the next conference, scheduled for spring 2013 in Finland. Watch this space for more details!

This was the latest in the ISPIM symposium series and John was invited to deliver a keynote address which was based on the recent AIM report on Open Collective Innovation (downloadable from www.aimresearch.org)

The conference drew around 120 participants from a wide range of countries and there were some fascinating papers form both academic and industrial perspectives.  It was particularly interesting to hear how New Zealand firms are dealing with the challenge of connecting into the world innovation system – with a growing concentration on high tech entrepreneurial business creation.  Examples included Mesynthes – a company specializing in active wound care using skin regeneration  (http://www.mesynthes.com) and Minimonos – an online game for children which has managed to build a population of around 250,000 users playing games around a strong sustainability theme (http://minimonos.com/wb/content/home) .  I managed to do a video interview with Melissa Clark-Reynolds, the founder (and ‘Alpha Monkey’ – great job title!) and will post it on the website shortly to be followed by a case study of the company.

On the same trip I spent a week with colleagues at Queensland University of Technology who hosted my visit (and also that of Frances Joergensen of Aarhus University who is working in aspects of HR and innovation with Karen Becker of QUT). In addition to various discussions round joint research, we ran a workshop with the State Department for Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (DEEDI) hosted by the Chief Scientist.

I also gave a talk in Melbourne at the launch event of the Victoria Universities Innovation Management Network, a grouping of 9 universities with shared interests in the topic and a variety of public and private sector organizations.  (Contact Andrew O’Loughlin of Deakin University for more details:

Other speeches came from innovation managers in Robert Bosch and Siemens, both of whom spoke to the wider theme of sustainability and innovation.  It will be interesting to see this network develop, especially as the 2013 ISPIM Symposium will take place in Melbourne and should provide an additional focus for research and experience-sharing.

http://www.paperjam.lu/paperjam_tv/fr/john-bessant-meeting-service-innovation-challenge

http://www.paperjam.lu/paperjam_tv/fr/paperjam-business-club-networking-breakfast-john-bessant

In this video interview David Simoes-Brown talks about some of the innovation management challenges involved in working with the new ‘open innovation’ environment.  More about the company and some case studies and examples can be found at:

http://www.100open.com/

More details can be found at:

http://www.skm.dk/foreign/

She is also involved with Mindlab, an innovation support agency which develops new approaches and builds innovation management capacity in the Danish public sector.  Mindlab is ‘owned’ by the Minsitries of Taxation, Employment and Economic Affairs.

More details of their work and some case studies can be found at:

http://www.mind-lab.dk/en

Helle-Vibeke is also writing a case study of the Danish experience for the website.

In this video interview Armin Rau, Strategy Partner of Sicap, talks about some of the innovation management challenges in working in the fast-moving world of software for mobile devices. Sicom is a spin-off from Swisscom, the Swiss national mobile operator and more information can be found at:

http://www.sicap.com/en/

Armin is also writing a case study of the Sicap experience which will be available on the website.