SWEDEN AND FINLAND ARE EU’S LEADING INNOVATORS

The 2004 European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS), an annual evaluation of each European Union member state’s level of innovation, has just been released. It ranks Sweden and Finland as the union’s leading innovators. Estonia and Slovenia are the top performing innovators of the ten new members of the EU.

The EIS was established by the European Commission and looks at “20 indicators, measuring human resources, the creation of new knowledge, the transmission and application of knowledge, and innovation finance. A composite indicator provides an overview of national performances.”

You can read more as well as download the scorecard itself.

From Report 103, by Jeffrey Baumgartner.

THE IMPORTANT THING IS NOT TO STOP QUESTIONING.

From John Stark

Get everyone on board

Implement cross-functional and inter-company team structures
Enable collaborative working
Ensure working relationships are win-win not win-lose
Provide incentives – financial and other – for innovation
Train your people to be great innovators
Encourage people to be creative
Create the desire to innovate
Provide career and skills development opportunities
Provide role-modeling

DO NOT FOLLOW WHERE THE PATH MAY LEAD. GO INSTEAD WHERE THERE IS NO PATH AND LEAVE A TRAIL.

The Practice of Innovation by Peter Senge

One possibility for difficulties innovating is that most people really don’t care about innovation. After all, Theory X is still the prevailing philosophy in most large institutions — certainly in the American corporate world. Few people in positions of authority would admit to that view, but our practices belie our espoused values. If we look honestly at how organizations manage people, most appear to operate with the belief that people cannot work without careful supervision. As Arie de Geus has shown in his recent book The Living Company, we treat the business enterprise as a machine for making money rather than as a living community. Consequently, we view people as “human resources” waiting to be employed (or disemployed) to the organizations’ needs. (The word resource literally means “standing in reserve, waiting to be used.”)

1. Know your purpose
2. Define vision
3. Assess results
4. Habit to Discipline

- Care more than others think is wise
- Risk more than others think is safe
- Dream more than others think is practical
- Expect more than others think is possible