|
The power of innovation is transforming the way we think of business worldwide. Now the time has come for the nation states to understand their part of the innovation system and following the Lisbon treaty each country in the EU are told to produce nation based innovation strategies. Hence follows the questions: How can nation states engage in innovation initiatives and what does a nation based innovation strategy look like? Sweden, who was pronounced the most creative nation in the world by Richard Florida 2003, released its manifest late 2004 called Innovative Sweden. Let's take a look...
The Swedish initiative is a colorful little booklet with leafs growing out of a seed. The four leafs are the areas that the government wants to put focus on to reach the goal of becoming "Europe's most effective, dynamic and knowledge based economy [...] Sweden should have the world's highest educational level". The four areas are:
INNOVATIVE PUBLIC INVESTMENTS
- The government wants public institutions - and this is really interesting - to be tough customers who cherishes proposals that have innovative and foresighted solutions at hand.
- To improve the effectiveness and development of the public sector and promote the commercialization of products in for example the defense (for civil use) and health care sector.
- To enhance the infrastructure of transport, logistics and IT.
THE INNOVATIVE HUMAN
- To stimulate entrepreneurship - Sweden is ranked very low when it comes to number of startups. The government wants to change the attitudes towards entrepreneurship and facilitate the bureaucracy (though the company climate is one of the best in Europe , so the problem is more an attitude one than a bureaucracy one).
- To let people fully use their competencies. By promoting new forms of organization of work and increase the flow of people between the business, public and academic sectors the government hope to achieve a more vivid innovative human.
A KNOWLEDGE BASE FOR INNOVATION
which will be built by:
- Securing that Swedish education and research is world-class. The government wants to continue to invest a large percent of the GDP in the basic research and increase the possibilities for international knowledge exchange programs.
- Build strength in Swedish profile areas. These are not decided but one of the actions is to prioritize which areas within industry and research that should be the strategic choices for Sweden . Another action is to increase the cluster building in different areas between education, public institutions and the business world.
- Use the possibilities of the globalization. More hours for language studies in schools, an competitive company tax and develop the image of Sweden as an innovative country is some of the steps that will be taken in this area.
AN INNOVATIVE BUSINESSWORLD
which will be created through:
- Strengthening the innovative capacity of existing SME's. The government talks about developing the support for product development and design, increasing the capacity for small enterprise leaders to act on a global arena, as well as stimulating tighter knowledge sharing forums between research and SME's.
- Increasing the commercialization of research results and ideas. Sweden has a poor history when it comes to putting great ideas and inventions to the market and strategy text puts focus on making the systems easier for researchers to gain access to the market, increase the public seed funding and promote the use of intellectual property rights.
Pretty vague and not so innovative one might think, but this is of course the short version and it is a big step to start formulating nation based innovation strategies. Next one might hope that there will be an innovation minister that will follow up and measure the results of the fuzzy initiatives that are put forth in the strategy.
We are happy for this first step... but we, and the rest of the Swedish state, will not stay happy if the next step is not taken soon!
Bring home your own pdf-copy of the Swedish innovation strategy at: http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/283/a/26652
N E W S
Idéagenten, book of the month
We are very proud to inform you that our book Idéagenten - en handbok i idea management has been awarded Book of the Month at the leading Swedish leadership magazine CHEF in February 2005.
The summarizing end of the review proclaimed:
"The advantages of the book:
A display of how the idea driven company should work. The writing is pedagogical and easy to comprehend. The book is generously filled with exercises and techniques. The different format and design together with descriptions, symbols and colors work as clear signals. A "schoolbook" at it's best.
... and the disadvantages:
This book deserves no minuses. It is altogether too well made for that."
If you would like to buy the book please contact us.
New Partnership
After several years of friendly networking, fluidminds and Idélaboratoriet has joined forces in order to create a more powerful offer to their customers in a strategic partnership. "We are working very hard on creating innovation in services for our clients, and we believe the energetic knowledge of Idélaboratoriet will fit perfectly with the dynamic fluidminds environment", says Jan de Man Lapidoth.
Combining the networks and services of both companies will create new and exciting business. The Malmö-based Idélaboratoriet will expand its physical presence using the wide reach of fluidminds' network. Jonas Michanek at Idélaboratoriet explains: "Our services have already had a terrific impact, and through the strategic partnership with fluidminds we now have a solid platform in Stockholm . Actually, we are already talking about exporting concepts to Brussels using the fluidminds office there."
In manners true to both organizations, the strategic partnership does not begin with paperwork. It begins with decisive activity, and already fluidminds and Idélaboratoriet have begun to develop new business concepts, started preparations for a open seminar on Innovation at fluidminds Stockholm offices, and a joint offer to the first client is on the way.
Minc Innovation Lab
We are also happy to announce that the incubator Minc has had the help of Idélaboratoriet and the architect firm Testbed Studio to do the design of their new innovation group workplace, Minc Innovation Lab that will open in late spring 2005. The space is designed according to the generic idea process developed by Idélaboratoriet and each specific phase has a room specially designed for its specific needs. The creative space will be open external organizations that want to inhale the innovative spirit of the incubator in general and the functionalistic designed Innovation Lab in specific. It you would like to hear more or rent the space for development activities please contact us.
-------------------------------------
To subscribe to the Serious Innovation Newsletter send an email to news@idelaboratoriet.com
|
