Focusing on Innovation for our Energy Transition we are all undertaking

November 20, 2019Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, gaining innovation momentum, Leading innovation, Polymers, Shifting dynamics in innovation

When you are undertaking such a transformation in any system like energy, innovation becomes vital to inject new forces of dynamism and creative thinking to tackling such a change.

The energy transition that the world is undertaking is one of the most critical areas where innovation needs to be at its very best, that top of the game to make the level of change necessary.

The existing solutions found in wind and solar solutions jockeying to replace oil, gas, and coal, in our present electricity distribution, as well as our current customer solutions for managing our energy, will only take you so far in our need to change our energy systems.

If we are to meet the mandated Paris Agreement of 2015, where member states agreed to limit global warming to 2 degrees C versus pre-industrial levels by 2050, we have to look at every climate change mitigation we can find. We have to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80 to 95 percent of the 1990 level by 20150. Today the solutions are centered on decarbonization, applying digitalization, and switching to an energy system that is more decentralized than at present and it is finding imaginative, innovating solutions that become essential to achieve this climate change through the energy transition we are undertaking.

Increasing innovation focus on the end-user segments within the energy transition story

October 2, 2019Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, innovation execution delivery, Leading innovation, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation
Source of visual used: https://www.elprocus.com/overview-smart-grid-technology-operation-application-existing-power-system/

When you investigate and research the energy transition that is underway, the higher focus to date has been on the progress to replace fossil fuel with renewable power generation technologies. As crucial renewable energy solutions (wind, solar) are falling in price comparison, we are beginning to see clean energy solutions for industry, for the environment, and society, as a whole. Energy transition and moving to renewable power generation, though, it is not happening fast enough.

We need to focus more on the active implementation of renewable energy solutions sooner than later. We are in an increasing race to work towards achievable goals to reduce global warming in the very ambitious time scales of the UN Paris climate agreement in 2016. This comprehensive agreement is to keep the global average temperature rise remaining below the two-degree Celsius agreed by 2050.

Presently we are failing behind this “two-degree pathway” deemed as essential, and we are currently forecasted to release more carbon and gases into the atmosphere, and that has severe repercussions for our planet.  Governments will need to introduce more substantive policies to meet the emission targets they signed up too and society, industry and us, as individuals will have to undergo adjustments to accommodate this in our habits, consumption, and usage.

It is not just replacing energy sources; it is all about solution renewal end-to-end

Innovation adoption in the technology lifecycle for Energy Translation

September 19, 2019Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Antibodies, Building Innovation Capability, gaining innovation momentum, innovation execution delivery, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation
Building the systems enabling framework. Source: World Economic Forum

Technological innovation has a central role to play in the Energy Transition currently being undertaken throughout the world. The shifts need to take the different parts of the energy system through a lifecycle approach to any future energy system

Briefly, our energy system has been based mostly on fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas) and as we extract these, they are non-renewable and the primary cause of the carbonization crisis we are all facing on planet earth. The solutions to replace these fuels are renewables based on wind, solar, biofuels, and have a sustainability credential. The economics of powering the energy system with renewables has got to the point where there is real competitiveness so we can undertake this energy transition and reduce the emissions of carbon into our atmosphere.

Managing Energy Transition through Innovation

September 3, 2019Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, innovation execution delivery, Leading innovation, Molecules1 Comment
Source IRENA https://www.irena.org/

In the past few months, I have been placing an increasing focus on the energy transition we all need to undertake in our energy systems, to build a more comprehensive understanding of the parts that make up the whole of this transition.

It is one of the most critical places where innovation application is required and able to be conducted to deliver a sustaining impact in our world. Innovation solutions will provide the energy transition needed, and that is what makes it such a compelling area to focus upon.

For me, the energy transition that the world is undertaking requires all forms of innovation, to offer technically advanced, as well as breakthrough solutions, to an incredibly complex system of energy delivery. To redesign a complete energy system in twenty to thirty years, which is the current time frame being wanted to be achieved, is as demanding as you can get. I certainly want to play a role in this transformation, it is exciting, challenging, and demanding on all involved.

We need to appreciate the magnitude of the innovation challenges

Checking for the global pulse of innovation

July 25, 2019Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, Leading innovation, Polymers, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

As a report, the 2019 Global Innovation Index (GII) is a whopper, at 450 pages, although 50% of this is detailed economic profiles and data tables for each country within the index.

This GII report investigates and reports on 129 countries and then analyzes and ranks them accordingly.

When you are caught up in generating innovation within a business these sorts of reports can often pass you by as not so relevant to your everyday job of innovation.

I can certainly understand that but as a barometer of the health and investment going into innovation, it will eventually filter through to you and has more relevance than you first imagine.

This report is mainly for those interested in forming national policy on innovation, or judging where they are within the global race on innovation, yet it tells us all some really important points on the current health of innovation.

Yet the innovation message is for us all. If nothing else read this summary.

Facilitating the Innovation Ecosystem Design

July 3, 2019Posted inAdvancing innovation, Innovation strategy, Leading innovation, Tackling innovation1 Comment

I do like to capture thoughts within Mind Maps. I am never sure if they work for others as the map maker does see things in his or her own way. In the end, it is seeing the other person getting it, that light bulb moment.

I have a group of Ecosystem Mind maps but I thought I’d share this one here to trigger further the thinking that needs to go into building an Innovation Ecosystem. Does it work for you? To be honest I am not sure if it conveys as much as I would like, to reflect on differences when you come to working in innovation ecosystem designs .

To get groups to think more openly about considering innovation in a more ecosystem approach to design and interaction I like to often refer to my mind maps to trigger discussions.

Sometimes it is mine, and mine alone, and I simply talk around it without showing the map, other times I show the map. The problem when you show maps, everyone works through it in their own unique way, however hard you try to get them to work through it in the way you want them too.

I have found mind maps are increasingly highly personal and it can take twice as long to explain something when you show the map to someone else. I think to put the mind map into a powerpoint “stages” it accordingly but it takes away the total map effect.

The key for me in the map shown below is to view considerations differently when you are thinking innovation ecosystems. There are your strategic considerations, there are tactical considerations and then there are value building considerations.

Finally a framework to manage holistically Industrial Revolution 4.0

April 3, 2019Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, Leading innovation, Molecules, Shifting dynamics in innovation1 Comment

Introducing the Smart Industry Readiness Index Prioritization Matrix

I was really pleased to watch the official launch of the Smart Industry Readiness Index (SIRI) with its addition of the Prioritization Matrix at Hannover Messe on Monday 1st April 2019.

This will become a very useful and relevant management planning tool to help manufacturers worldwide to determine and prioritize their necessary areas of focus with all the digital initiatives, based on an Industry 4.0 Maturity and their current performance.

This tool or readiness prioritization index has a real potential to finally bring organizational wide awareness and common language identification. It can help implementation in a number of significant ways.

This has been pioneered by The Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), a very formidable Government entity within the development of Singapore over the years, and in consultation and growing support, from McKinsey & Co, SAP, Siemens, and TüV SüD.

The framework is a very systematic and I feel, a robust way, to focus on what matters to you in your own Industrial Revolution 4.0 journey (IR4). So often organizations do not have a clear vision, strategy or can develop a systematic roadmap for this form of transformation. It becomes overwhelming and a real challenge of where to start. Often the more you read, seek advice, the more you get confused.

What do we expect from Innovation? Mostly disappointment

October 1, 2018Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, Leading innovation, Polymers, Tackling innovation2 Comments

Good innovation is notoriously hard to achieve. There are so many obstacles and uncertainties as you take an idea or concept through to eventual release. Often, we are dealing in the unknowns and uncertainties. We continually lack facts, we keep seeking validation. We are pressured for results. Others looking at the innovation progress keep demanding tangible evidence and quantifiable guarantees that the outcome provides clear returns.

Much of the innovation discovery journey is a disappointing one. A hunch or insight becomes a dead end. A promising idea did not foresee a roadblock that cannot be resolved. Resources constantly “churn” and get depleted, waiting for others to be brought up to speed. Those not involved directly within the innovation project constantly remain skeptical or require more proof. The status quo of the existing places an increasing drag on the forces of change.

Then we have that often-delusional aspect; where the organization has this total belief they are well ahead of their competitors and simply point to their financial performance as the justification that their innovation is superior when it is so many other factors that have determined that. Superior is often so transitory.

When they are constantly scanning reports on the “state of innovation” it can often lull them, to give some that warm glow, others quickly being dismissive, disregarding many of the key messages as “not applicable to me”.

Optimism in Innovation, Thinking About Risk Differently

September 6, 2018Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, Leading innovation, Polymers, Shifting dynamics in innovation1 Comment

For me, there is never enough talked about innovation risk. Innovation is held back so often because the quantification of it’s risk cannot fit into an organization’s current assessment and measurements of risk.

Innovation is often too intangible, full of unknowns as the very nature of anything new and different. Innovation risk leaves many executives very uncomfortable.

Organizations get uncomfortable when the words “radical” “intangible”, “unknowns” and other words like these when they form part of the conversation. It often starts to induce that “risk twitch” where that careful management for short-term performance might become threatened, or the manager feels any decision is ‘going out on a limb’ and possibly career threatening.

That growing uncomfortable feeling that innovation places their bonus at “risk” so they like to ring-fence innovation as much as possible. Now some of that ring-fencing is fine, you contain a risk to keep it manageable but most innovation does not constitute organization risk, yet it gets caught up in that risky fear that innovation seems to induce. Actually, if we were managing innovation at the core, our risk management for it would be very heightened and managed differently, but how many of our companies’ have innovation as their core?

So I always welcome discussion on risk and innovation. The more we talk about it the better for what is coming towards us.

So the value we can derive from using Knowledge Graphs

August 14, 2018Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Building Innovation Capability, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation

How does Knowledge Graphs fit within our need to communicate in new, visually exciting ways?

Let me provide a short narrative to give this a meaning and why it is becoming so important

Today we deliver content- It has become far too easy. We are drowning in it on a daily basis. We all suffer a massive deluge of digital input. Content can’t stand alone.

  • What we need is context to anchor content and give it the clear meaning to understand………..that’s our necessary starting point.

Context shifts everything, it gives it shape, a structure to draw (deeper) meaning from. We learn to know, to integrate, to remember, to understand and to act.

Of course, context is going to be fluid as it builds out its related content.

Having content and context is complementary, interconnected, and interdependent, they interrelate to one another.

As we gain more insights we can potentially build a greater understanding. We simply improve our knowledge.

It is going to be needed to be adaptive as we learn but it will be placed in ‘certain bounds’. If we start from a much clearer starting base then the learning and discovery allow people to want to find solutions as they gain increased knowledge and provide fresh inputs, they begin to strongly relate. We pass through memory understanding as we learn.