Dubbed “Innovation Breakthroughs – Igniting Europe’s Growth” They were celebrating 10 years of the opening of the centre and as you arrived, you saw the cranes at work to double the facility as well as further deepen their commitments within the surrounding community even further.

One such community success story has been the co-location they have with the Technical University of Munich (TUM), where both have evolved to share a real philosophy of creating new knowledge and making it available for the industrial innovation process through this partnership.

They combine in a number of “sweet spots” or research domains, that move the academic creative contributions of science into the industrial researchers alongside, working to advance products, bringing these concepts to commercial fruition.

The event also combine with the announcement of Euro €18.5 Million in New Research Program Funding announced as GE Marks the 10th Anniversary of its Global Research Centre in Europe with its university partners. A further community commitment.

Alongside side this announcement, a White Paper was issued on “The State of European Innovation”, drawing down from the GE Innovation Barometer  and other resources.

I have always liked to read with interest this set of Barometer insights,  and have enjoyed commenting upon (here for example) the results that are published each year. The GE Innovation Barometer I think really does offer valuable insights into innovation thinking by over 3,000 leaders in larger business organizations. It offers good insights into the inner thinking about innovation that has practical implications.

A quick tour of the R&D facilities reveals much about a company

While I was there, I was lucky enough to take a “quick” tour of the GE facility after my small contribution to a fascinating set of debates earlier in the day. I can honestly state the passion, commitment and sense of pride in all the researchers I meet were impressive. It goes way, way beyond putting on a positive spin to the visitor, it is a deep desire and I think a real motivation to push advancement.

Before I went to Munich I really got caught up in GE and its evolving story.
From the outside looking into GE I had felt it was evolving but I was not able to get ‘under the hood’ and see the ‘powerful forces’ that seem to be at work. This event helped trigger that growing awareness and brought it significantly to life for me.

GE often use an awful lot of ‘convening words’ that make you curious to connect to their technologies, and their industry areas and explain how and where these are evolving. I think this thinking has been ‘cranking up’ significantly in the past couple of years, and for good reasons. GE has a good evolving story to tell.

Included in their portfolio are some of the essential aspects of our lives, they connect us, connect enterprises and advance many things and reshape the future. When you hear about “mapped minds”, “brilliant factories”, “extreme machines”, “energy everywhere”, “super materials” and finally their take of the “industrial internet” it confronts you. That was how I felt when I walked through the doors into their lobby area.

For me it was going to be a promising day.
Irrespective of how or where I could contribute, I knew I was going to learn a lot from the event. As it turned out the panel I was invited upon became fairly lively.

I had the pleasure of being on a panel that included Mark Little, the Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Office for GE, Jean Botti, the Chief Technical and Innovation Officer for the Airbus Group and Christian Cahn von Seelen, the Head of Corporate Strategy, China and India Business at Skoda Auto.

The audience ranged from politicians, and senior representatives across industry, research institutions and health and the Q & A I felt could have gone on and on, debating Europe’s innovative future. We simply touched the ‘tip of the iceberg as there are equally dangers lurking not just under the surface as complex problems to tackle.

Yet equally, such a positive mass of deep knowledge, real tangible successes and high absorption of learning across Europe, all needs to be picked apart, mapped out and reconnected in new ways, does provide a promising future in innovative ways to get Europe moving again, in growth, jobs and unified commitments. I only wish it was less left in Politicians and Bureaucratic hands and our institutions and business leaders were more deeply involved in shaping the process, not just lobbying for their specific part.

Plenty of pride, some angst.

Sitting in Germany you can always ‘feel’ that real pride, a clear determination and belief in the achievements made and plenty yet to come-

Equally, you know what will be delivered in much of the approaches can be summarized as making connected sense. Sometimes the rest of Europe does seem to want to ‘pull’ in other ways and that is hard to understand from a German’s perspective. This is part of ‘our’ creative tensions in Europe to be bridged.

It is part of the challenges we face in Europe, connecting all the diversity and opinions of 28 countries to get growth and a real momentum within the European economy going again. Debating the required innovation fits across Europe is complex and challenging.

What I liked in my visit was a reminder that if you combine much that is good from one culture and fuse it in thoughtful ways that capitalise on the diversity of the other or across many, you can really see tangible results. Collaborating on big challenges would be one ‘unifier’.

I think the combination of the fusion of the mindsets of an American company that believes it is a scale-based entrepreneur organization, managing complicated technologies and ‘big things’ and a collection of bright researching minds, all drawn from not just across Europe but many parts of the world, sitting next to a university (TUM) that are plugging into the German way of doing things is a good example of this collaborating across big challenges.

Of course, managing complex situations across cultures can be frustrating but this host of ‘connected points’ strikes me to be a winning formula. Of course in GE’s case, you throw in the connected nine Global Research centres you certainly ‘sense’ this motion towards an accelerating future within GE. 2,000 scientists and engineers and 50,000 technologists. It can make you pause for breath, it’s simply impressive, and ‘living proof’ of connecting minds, knowledge, and cultures with machines on how it can generate results that are advancing what we know today in significant ways.

Then we have the wave of connecting minds and machines.

Mark Little the Chief Technology Officer for GE was heading out of the door early afternoon to catch the flight to get him back to GE’s next event, of connecting minds and machines being held the next day. Now this promises a different, potentially radical new future in industry and GE are placing a lot of resource and commitments into it.

GE is taking a real lead here. In the last three years, they have been ramping up their thinking, dubbed “the industrial internet” and moving into the power of connected industrial assets (the machines) through embedding sensor technology everywhere on the machine, bringing back its data from often hostile environments and through the analytics applied can turn this into ‘intelligent information.’

This offers the potential of real-time decision making, delivering required and necessary insights at the right time, to the operators and business decision-makers so as to manage that dreaded aspect all industries fear of “downtime” better. It also allows for managing more efficiently and effectively the assets.

Already I gather GE has put over £1 billion into this potential game-changing move to transform industry. CEO and Chairman Jeff Immelt’s opening to this event with his headline view: “if you went to bed last night as an Industrial company, you are going to wake up in the morning as a software and analytical company” where the separation between data and industry has vanished. Does this change the business model, I think so.

Of course, Jeff Immelt is saying this, he runs a “big bets company” and they are setting about transforming the industry for competitive advantage. Yet again though, it is the way they seem to be setting about it that makes you feel it is happening and shifting the dynamics of big asset business, in significant ways.

Platforms, Partnerships and the Ecosystem

I strongly believe the future of collaboration is going to be based around platforms and ecosystems, where you bring together the minds and the business interest, gathered around specific but complex issues to solve. GE are working on delivering this.

Through their platform of Predix, GE are providing “industrial-strength software and analytics” and spoke of having 40 apps ready for customer use today at this event. They are also throwing open the platform for others to use, build and develop their apps. GE will offer the backbone, architecture, resilience, and security for others to come onto this platform with growing confidence and work towards ‘apps’ that are even more tailor-specific to their needs beyond ‘just’ sensors.

The partners already working with delivering from this platform are Cisco, Intel and Accenture and GE’s investment in Pivotal will mean the amount of time GE executives will be spending in San Francisco building the resources behind this is a space worth following.

I gather they have 800 data scientists and GE is on a further massive recruit to ramp this up, well over doubling this in the region, to attract and blend the best in talent, software and analytics. I also gathered they have been but recruiting the ‘forty something’ person as well for their business experience, as they sit down and work through issue upon issue with their customers.

It is clearly evolving at some speed, GE are delivering the Medici Effect of breakthrough insights at the intersections of ideas, concepts and cultures. as our world becomes more intersectional when we merge one field into a new, unfamiliar territory for these radical changes in how we will manage in the future.

The combinations of smart machines, enabling technologies, big data modelling and analytics and determining the customer outcomes in increasing collaborations, will radically alter the Business Model of GE in future years, in ways that we yet can’t imagine.

As I left the R&D centre in Munich

As I look up at the crane as I left and saw the shell of the additional building going up in Munich, I can imagine that science, research and technology will fuse in ways that we are only beginning to grasp. I wonder what type of mix of skills that group of future employees will have, far more a blend, perhaps a more broad set, rather than one that is deep only.

We will be seeing software services, a changing portfolio strategy and GE’s scientists, researchers and engineers all managing not just in their deep domains of knowledge but broadening out into far greater engagements alongside customers. It alters and unleashes.

Combining in future ways with the chosen universities, institutions and partners, increasing working through and on these platforms. where collaboration and co-creation will move way beyond today’s open innovation concepts, focusing on bringing ‘synergies’ that deliver those vital winning outcomes.

The future era of innovation suddenly looks even brighter.

So those Asset-intensive industries that are looking to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and search to unlock new sources of customer value, are moving into a ‘connected realisation’ that will bring the industrial internet into increasing focus. It will sit alongside the social side, where the internet of things (IoT) has been making most of the running to date, encroaching far more of our business and personal lives.

The promise of deep, lasting connections and relationships all seem to be offering innovation in a new era of prosperity, were connected enterprise and the connected world come together with very different business models, built on this ‘promise’ of platforms and ecosystems, delivering in very tangible ways through a collaborative common cause.

A place where “Everything connects,” a book written recently by Faisel Hoque, is suggesting where people, insights, capital, infrastructure and ecosystems combine. One where the age of creativity, innovation and sustainability come together as the needed skills required to be continually adaptive.

I’m all for that era. We are at perhaps an inflexion point on the way we are thinking, managing, and collaborating in a connected universe for new growth possibilities. I’d like to believe so and from what I can see, GE is well on their way to working this out in its own, highly focused way.

The post Connected Enterprise, Connected World with GE first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

The Barometer has explored the actions or constraints that senior business executives are worrying over in their pursuit of innovation.

The fieldwork was undertaken in April and May, 2014 and covered 3,200 phone interviews to people directly involved in the innovation strategy or process. It covered 26 countries and was conducted by Edelman Berland on GE’s behalf.

The supporting website provides the GE view of how this report reflects and provides an overview, an interactive, resources and key point headings sections to explore.

I  personally think GE have actually been a little too low-key on this report and frankly far too conservative on the potential takeaways in reading their ‘take’ in the overview.

It has significant implications for our organizations to grapple with but each is certainly not alone, it is a collective need to move innovation forward or you place much at risk if you don’t find solutions to the issues raised in this report.

This year the Barometer broke out of its past and steamed ahead.

The GE Barometer report for 2014 does seem to have broadened out its assessment on innovation, in my opinion, into a more comprehensive one around three aspects: 1) What are today’s drivers and barriers, 2) what are the trends, practices, myths and realities and 3) the country and public policy issues to tackle for supporting innovation.

There are two reports, one is a summary that can stand alone to quickly grasp the issues but does not really do the real justice that the full report provides in 68-odd slides. I’d recommend you explore both.

So what do I  have as my takeaways from this GE Barometer 2014?

I have summarized thirteen points that make some more than helpful insight into what is holding innovation back. In some ways by not cracking some of these it will kill off some businesses and this increased anxiety and fear I sense runs through many presently engaged in innovation, it is these that ‘reveals’ these tension points within this report. Take a read and see if you agree?

These are my thoughts summarized in these thirteen points gathered from the report:

1. Inequality, caused increasingly by technological innovation, will have a growing impact and fears on the ability to innovate, if innovation within countries or regions is not recognized as a real wealth creator or destroyer and its enablers are not effectively put into place and leveraged. The ability to resolve this or not, will have significant impacts on the lives and country positions within the global race for innovating competitiveness.

2. It is interesting to see a fairly equal view on the challenges being presented by a technological shift is either a revolution (52% think so) or an evolution (42%) and it does seem a number of emerging countries are rising to the challenge. Whereas the established ones might be less caught up in this, seeing this as part and parcel of radical changes going on. I think there seems an underlying complacency in some, a determination in others to shift the dynamics of how their country is seen and invested in.

3. The effect of this multifaceted change going on where greater collaboration convergence of technologies, the place of Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT) seems to be leaving many of our organizations ill-prepared to embrace these.

4. External collaboration is a confirmed reality, the world over and it seems most organizations have passed through the downsides and see open collaborations as “risks worth taking” to innovate successfully today.

5. Big Data seems to be dominating many people’s minds today. 94% accept the reality of Big Data as something here to stay but the fears; constraints and impact, are far from worked through. Naturally you would understand this as Big Data is very emerging in its redefined concept but you gain a really clear sense of significant resistance to focus on this and how organizations are (totally) lacking in their abilities to capitalize on this. Some are actually “dreading the challenges and impact” it will have.

6. The Internet of Things (IoT) is seen to likely have a positive impact on jobs but 44% of those surveyed surprisingly had not heard of the “Industrial Internet” notion when asked. As this is a ‘GE-speak’ view of the more popular IoT it might not be a surprise as I can’t believe these level would not have heard or thought about IoT surely? There are clear ‘lead and laggards’ in different industries, with many indicating they are “not quite prepared” or “not at all prepared” for what this means on their business. (OMG!)

7. There is a review of how the global game of innovation is being played out with the balance required to localise the needs. ‘Glocal’ still resounds for many but I think this catch phrase might be not reflecting the true inability to tap into specific market needs and from this, local innovation might be significantly constrained. Like to understand this more to see if I might be right here, I think so.

8. The focal point of GE’s press release was entitled “Disruption Ready” yet there seems a huge anxiety here. The difficulties of changing mind sets, behaviours and processes is potentially going to “kill the business” is suggested, unless the ability to quickly adapt and implement emerging technologies is not undertaken. I think this needs a greater all-encompassing reflection as disruption itself is getting a lot of ‘airing’ at the moment. In this report 72% state they will protect their core business profitability and believe (mistakenly in my opinion) successful innovation (62% of responders) will come from planned innovation. Perhaps but not in the present way we structure innovation.

9. There is a strong continued worry over (a lack of) internal agility was acknowledged but the citing of “internal inertia” is seen as a critical challenge that can equally “kill their business” rings some real alarm bells for me.

10. Speed-to-market is split right down the middle. 50% believe getting to market as quickly as possible is key, 50% argue “not to rush” and take the time to perfect their innovation (another mistake in my opinion)

11. 60% of all interviewed still deem it difficult to define an effective business model and yet another seen challenge that is “killing the ability to innovate”. The scaling of innovation is equally seen as a concern and part of this real underlying Business Model issue.

With all the progress on BM’s you would think organizations would be working this defining and experimenting with different BM’s well through? The understanding, concepts and frameworks are out there but the board room seems to be blind to embracing this. It will change that is for sure.

12. The area that seems more ‘ripe’ for engaging and collaborating is between public sector and private industry on working through the needs for innovation and laying in the right policies and frameworks. The growing recognition that SME’s are leading the recovery charge, the encouraging of more start-ups and attracting into the country the multinational is tough to get into the right balance.

The public sector ‘reaction and responses’ lag more than lead and taking too much time to bring into place the factors for promoting innovation but within this report are some great slides on issues that can frame some healthy discussions and allow all the sides within the country innovation debates to engage and work out the evolving frameworks. I liked this section to help in this.

13. Lastly I liked the self-evaluation of each respondents view of their own countries innovation improvement or not, around that countries innovation framework. The developed countries are in need of waking up and listening, it seems.

My summary of the report.

So a rich report with lots of issues that do, it seems, need to be unlocked, unblocked and further uncovered to allow innovation to deepen and take hold. There are so many warning signals that I feel cannot be left much longer to tackle.

When you see “fear, anxiety, dread, killing our business, inertia, not prepared, not heard of, and killing the ability to innovate” it might raise one or two alarm bells somewhere.

Perhaps the alarm bells should be going off within the boardrooms, they need to start paying closer attention here, clearly they are still reluctant to understand and embrace innovation, they are not getting the multiple messages as it has far too many ‘disruptive forces’ to deal with but avoiding addressing these is far, far worse.

I think GE and their Barometer 2014 has some really helpful clues in not only what is “holding innovation back” but more in pointing up to “what needs to change” to allow innovation to really move forward. Please take some time to read it.

I would finally like to congratulate GE for investing in this initiative, it helps serve their global business by knowing more of what is the present thinking across many of their customers and across broad industries and public bodies they work with and it is proving thought leadership.

It also allows us all to understand the issues surrounding innovation

I certainly do look forward to where they take their GE Barometer 2015 on innovation as they have raised numerous issues that can be further followed up just from this 2014 report alone.

The post So what is holding innovation back? A new GE report first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

This ‘dizziness’ for many is being caused by a growing unease with the continuing changing dynamics of today’s business landscape and uncertainty over the path forward. This is forcing leaders to think differently about how they will achieve growth.

The good news though is it does seems that many are beginning to embrace this complexity by exploring new and sometimes unexpected opportunities to innovate.
According to Beth Comstock, the senior vice president and chief marketing officer of GE, “leaders are betting big on more unconventional approaches to innovation to unlock growth”.

It seems GE are trying to stay ahead of the pack in unlocking innovation by exploring different markets, partnership structures and business models.

Big data is accelerating up the inside as we have seen both GE and P&G, placing increasing emphasis on this, as a potential source of innovation insight they feel is presently missing.
The most important point comes back to these tensions or vertigo being felt, that is showing through in this report, between the desire for globalization and protectionist temptations that organizations sometimes tend to favor.

It seems as our leaders are being pushed outside their comfort zones they are having this uneasiness with the pace of change and confusion over the best path forward.

I’d hazard a guess  on what they feel as ‘vertigo’ does go beyond the usual symptoms of light-headedness and dizziness and is possibly far more: that of a chronic lack of solutions beginning to creep into their  psyche as their worlds are spinning out of their control, to stay managing in the ways they have been. Perhaps welcome to our world Mr Leader.

As many of them will be gathering in Davos, Switzerland between 23^rd to 27^th January 2013 (http://tinyurl.com/afde4w5) I think the higher than usual altitude, will not help their brains or nervous systems as the whole economic system is still out of balance, so having “Innovation Vertigo” is part of a bigger malaise I would expect.

Still, here are the top line summary points of the report

The protectionist debate

There seems a growing undercurrent of wanting protectionism but making sure it works in their favour. This could be trying to get Governments to prioritize promotion of domestic innovation rather than imported but many others continue to feel markets need to be opened even more to promote the imported innovation and attract the (domestic) investment that goes with this, or should.

A growing number of leaders see growing challenges for innovation within local economies, believing that the increased competition and accelerated pace of technological advancement has a negative impact. So this is a growing set of policy paradoxes, leaders want clearer decisions through local governments to determine this and bring it under control.

The wish to go beyond just product innovation

There is also a growing recognition that incremental innovation is simply just not enough as organizations are suffering from this lack of growth momentum, causing much of the “vertigo”. Business model innovation is becoming more and more the solution with a growing view that a new business model may offer businesses a less risky and resource-intense path to reach customers over the current ‘traditional’ methods.

I read an awful lot into this but top of mind does come the word ‘naivety’ and a chose this word due to its definition: “being naive is often lacking developed powers of reasoning and criticism.”  They might look far more at the “within” and come down from their often lofty heights and recognize they are the ones that inhibit and constrain the existing structures to perform in so many ways, far too many to start to outline here.

I welcome new business models of course, I teach the methodologies associated with them, so they are needed but are these organizations equipped to design, construct and execute new business models?  Also what happens to all the resource-intense ones, do they continue, only to wither and die as new ones are pushed by their own leaders?

No, this might be fanciful but it needs a far more robust debate and thinking through.  Of course focusing on the right forces for growth mentioned to master innovation is the real need for innovating successfully, business needs to master customer and market insights, talent and technology development.

Grasping new business models alone does not change that inherent weakness seen today in existing organizations. Theory and desire might be one thing, reality and sunken investment might be another –  maybe more vertigo then?

Collaborations continue to feature

According to the report, it is the belief that collaboration between businesses is emerging as a means to surpass competitors, enabling faster access to new technologies and markets particularly in emerging markets.

Yet despite global acknowledgement of partnership’s power, concerns over revenue sharing, IP protection, trust and talent poaching pose barriers to action. Germany, China, Brazil and Sweden seem to have the most experience at partnerships.

It does seem collaborative innovation has plenty of global appeal as a key to business success, and momentum are accelerating in developing markets and seemingly slowing down in developed ones.

The reasons for collaborations are given as access to new technologies, access to new markets; improve existing product and service and speed up time to market.

The downsides are a lack of trust and policy protection underpins much of the anxiety over business collaboration and the continuing “old chestnut” of IP protection, which all fit with developing country lag issues on legislation protection.

Government as stewards of the innovation environment

This one also gets me intrigued – stewards – umm. We are in such a “fog” from lack of dynamic leadership at government level, partly due to the complexity and tangled knots we have got ourselves into but also the underwhelming mandate delivered at the ballot box leaves the politics of politics in stalemate.

I always get the sneaky feeling business leaders keep pushing government to lead and make policy and then scream and shout, another vertigo moment, if they don’t like the decisions that go with this.

Of course policy environments affecting innovation are caught up in this and the usual call to safeguard business interests adds to the tensions. Business worries over the lack of talent, of loss of knowledge, in IP issues and fear bureaucracy (besides their own) and over regulation (beside their own again) but often we can’t see our business leaders heading the charge to hang onto talent already in place, reduce the knowledge we all have by insisting on many brain-numbing daily activities, called specialisation and filling in information called for by the “system” etc.

Our business leaders want to see “a stronger entrepreneurial culture in the education system through stronger linkages between students and business savvy individuals” but sitting on their hands and wallets until this comes through any changed education system does not solve our immediate and next ten years of problems –  does it? I suspect more vertigo moments for them.

Lastly, guess what, talent is not in the right place

Leaders want to have access to the creativity and technical prowess within their workforce but the lack of preparedness and access to this ‘talent’ is holding them back in “unlocking innovation”. I find it hard here to not become a little cynical on this.

Matching jobs and people is hard, no doubt and lining up the right skills to meet the economic needs required today is correct but if all the millions of messages of caution in the past about investing in people, in nurturing what you have, holding onto what you have in experienced people, instead of simply letting them go, many on early retirement packages or just leaving out of continued frustration, I do have a hard time on their concerns. They made the bed……..

Perhaps another symptom of “Innovation Vertigo” is “Innovation knee-jerking”, turning it off and on for the short-term needs and abandoning the notion of continuous, sustained investment in the skills, along with developing the experience base through challenging environments and leading edge investments.

Well at least if new business models come into serious ‘play’ then the skills, experience base and challenging environments will all equally be in ‘play’ but not in the controlled ways they would want to see but at the edges of much discomfort for some white knuckle rides.

Thanks GE for providing this, it is certainly helpful to see inside leaders minds.

I enjoy the GE Global Innovation Barometers they often do raise the blood pressure and that of course is a certain tell, tell sign that I might be suffering “Innovation Vertigo” as well.

Can I go to Davos as well, please? I do live in the country but more at a solid ground(ed) level, I’d like to be a little light-headed above the clouds as perhaps all that attend are.

The report is at http://www.ge.com/sites/default/files/Innovation_Overview.pdf
or with different views here: http://www.ideaslaboratory.com/projects/innovation-barometer-2013/

The post Leaders are feeling the effects of Innovation Vertigo says GE first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

The lamppost had turned that funny yellow colour, as more and more snow was falling in the car park and building those little domes of snow on top of everything.

It was the Friday before Christmas, the last day in the office for three days.

Jim was looking forward to getting home tonight, so he could share some time with the family after having been on a frantic trip to four different cities, on three continents, in seven days, to meet with his different team members.

This was quickly put together to coordinate the project they were all working upon, compare notes, and set some goals for the coming weeks.
Pre-Christmas travel

He was tired but also troubled, apart from all those delays at airports, different hotels and long days and growing jet lag this was not the main reason for his headache. He had been working on finding a solution for a molecule that would make a significant contribution to his company’s product pipeline, and they certainly needed this ‘breakthrough’ as 2012 will be a ‘watershed’ year in his industry.

Jim, like many others in research and across his company, was worried, really worried. According to what he reads billions of dollars and many of the larger blockbusters were falling over the “patent cliff” as it has been dubbed and he was wondering what they mean for him. He has heard rumours, swirling around, a little like the snow outside, that yet another re-organization is in the works.

More uncertainly to face and it will do his cause no good if he can’t crack this particular problem, the reason he went ‘racing’ around the world to visit the other research centres in Rio, Brazil, Shanghai in China, Jurong in Singapore and Basel in Switzerland.

Stars in the Universe always twinkle.

Jin loves his work, he tells many of his friends willing to listen to his same old story: “molecules are so small that there are more molecules in your body than there are stars in the universe!”

His kids love that one as he then grabs them and tickles them so they ‘squeal’ with delight. Also, he never gets tired to tell anyone who cares to listen or ask what he does.

Those that know Jim always expect him to make this comment or a similar one when the extended family gathers around the Christmas table, to keep everyone aware of his contribution to this world.

He often gets ‘ribbed’ on the number of molecules he seems to be adding himself and Jim shakes his head, dismissing them all as “ignorant peasants” or something more specific and then laughs out loud along with everyone else.

What’s so special in Jim’s mind about molecules is always their unique shape that allows them to interact with other molecules. The interactions between molecules made up of black carbon atoms, white hydrogen, red oxygen and nitrogen atoms are always buzzing around in his head when he peers into that microscope.

Jim enjoys his work, even he would happily stand up and state he is proud of his contribution but at this moment of time, he certainly needs to find this solution to his current vexing problem, as the deadline set to solve this has been ‘laid down’ from on high and that always has some darker sides to any ‘edict’ like that.

Hence this was partly why he went on this last-minute dash around the team, to find a solution to their problem.

The darker side of acceleration taps on his shoulder

The bigger problem is, it is simply getting tougher, is the constant message he is getting down from the top within his company, not only to come up with new drugs, as he well knows but also to convince insurers and the government to pay for them — unless they make meaningful improvements in health, at a reasonable cost.

Everyone has to lift up their game, accelerate the work and offset some of those worrying times ahead if possible, well at least try to make a contribution that is acknowledged and hopefully appreciated by others.

Santa comes early

Suddenly he hears that familiar sound of an incoming email, he turns around to take a look as it gives him a chance for some distraction. Normally he would not be feeling this about any last-minute emails before he heads off home for the Christmas break.

The email was from Lo Ping, in the research centre in Shanghai. Quickly reading it he suddenly brightens up. Lo has found a possible breakthrough to the problem. It seems after Jim’s visit and explanation, Lo Ping decided to reach out to their collaborators around the Asian region and pose the question to them.

One of the research institutes in Thailand they work with thinks they might have an answer, something they were working on for another company but in another unrelated industry, so they can find a way to explore this in some form of open innovation collaboration.

Jim knew Lo Ping would not bother him unless she was fairly sure this would likely be the answer he and his team have been working hard to solve.

Open innovation has been a great help for him to bring other ‘like minded people into the discovery process.

A world that never sleeps, even at Christmas
Lo Ping with her usual humour writes “here’s the deal Jim, knowing you will be sitting with your feet up over the next few days while some of the rest of us work, I will fly to Thailand, investigate, work on the testing to see if this does make the breakthroughs and then do some more work in my labs before you get back in three days- how about that?”

Jim smiled, knowing Lo Ping and her team they will deliver as promised. The Shanghai lab is a twenty-four times seven one, meaning it is working 24 hours a day, every day. Comparing that with the one here that Jim works in, in the US it only works, at a pinch, 9 to 10 hours, five days a week and that often causes at head office many comments on productivity, cost efficiencies etc, etc. These constant global comparisons just add more pressure.

He quickly emails back to Lo Ping- “sure, go for it and thanks, I owe you one”. Within seconds a further email comes back from Lo Ping suggesting: “well just remember Chinese New Year is on 23^rd & 24^th January this year and if you could shift that review meeting to a little later as a return favour, it will allow me to release some of my team to have time with their families- agreed?”

Jim laughs, he knows Lo Ping and her way of conveying the needs of her team, also means her. He emails back “sure, providing you have those results on my desk in three days”. Only a ‘smiley’ is the reply.

Let the collaborative process work- “let it flow, let it flow, let it flow”
Wow, that is a great relief thinks Jim, if we can find the breakthrough, and make a collaborative deal with the Thai lab to share in the benefits we might quickly get back on track.

Some quick emails off to the team, then to legal in Singapore to be on the alert to join in the negotiations, a copy to the central open innovation legal person in New York so that it will get the legal wheels grinding along as well. He thinks he needs to pull in that favour following his buying of the meal in Singapore last week for the team, including the lawyer.

Sometimes those face to face, social meetings pay incredible dividends and he knows Satvinder Sirajay is very dependable and wants to help especially after they found out over dinner they had daughters playing football for their schools. Knowing each other in this connected world does help.

Reminders and recognition

He recalls listening to Don Tapscott a few weeks ago, talking of the Age of Network Intelligence where the five principles now apply. These are ‘collaboration, transparency, sharing, interdependency and integrity’ and Jim just felt he had ‘touched’ each of these within this set of events. So these gurus do know what they are talking about, after all, he thinks.

That suddenly prompts him to remember to pick up those two books he had ordered from Amazon to read over this Christmas break. One he needed to read to prepare for his innovation session to his research colleagues straight after Christmas- “Best Practices Are Stupid- 40 ways to out-innovate the competition” by Steve Shapiro and the other to help him find ways around one or two rather stubborn middle managers that seem to be blocking his initiatives from ‘seeing the light of day at the senior level.

Yes he even liked the title on that one “Relentless Innovation- what works, what doesn’t” by Jeffrey Phillips.

He certainly was thinking to himself about where he works, it is “relentless innovation” with the worldwide research centres working 365 days of the year. As he closed upon his working day he came up with the title for his next (fantasy) book “restless innovators.”

Back to earth and chores for the evening

Suddenly the blackberry beeped, a SMS from his wife gently reminding him to “not forget to pass by the local butcher for the turkey and pick up the Christmas tree next door, the one she had already ‘marked out’ and paid for and don’t forget you promised to decorate it with the kids.”

His smile suddenly changes though as he hits that cold blast of air, quickly pulling up his coat collar to stop the snow from trickling down his neck but it didn’t matter he was happy.

Happy to share Christmas with his family, happy his problem seemingly was about to be solved somewhere else in the world while he took some time off and happy about that decision to go around the different research centres to lay out the problems.

He felt this gave them all a personal identification and shared understanding of what was needed from them as a global research team, working on innovating the next breakthrough for their company.

A little cold shudder but that was for another day

The only shudder he felt was the need to face up to the merger issues that were announced. Still, that was for after Christmas when he arrives back to hopefully find the team working away in Asia has found the solution and that positive message he could then gives the ‘powers that be’ the good news.

Hopefully, it will remind them of the many reasons why they were such a powerful collaborative team, essential to the future of sustaining their position in the market.

Crazy, connected but collaborative

“Yep”, thought Jim- this is certainly a crazy, connected world but today it was simply a great collaborative feeling one gets on working on solving a problem.

One, that in his mind, would lead to a potential innovating product that will save lives. Not bad as a great feeling as Jim heads home to the family and celebrates Christmas and all of what it means in our lives.

Enjoy your Christmas and happy innovating in 2012! Stay optimistic.

The post A Christmas Story looking out on Innovation first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.