Conspicuous contribution and the policy and practice of enabling innovation

The Ontario Chamber of Commerce released their Emerging Stronger 2013 report recently, and it has some notable elements for enabling the innovation economy. These include closing skills gaps, notably in apprenticeship training, and ensuring there are strong links between education and industry (a core mandate for colleges), including for applied R&D. On the R&D side, here is an interesting take on tech transfer that links well to the notion of open source development communities and giving back more than you take. This is the value espoused by Tim O'Reilly; read about it here. Conspicuous contribution will be the norm going forward, and as we reorient the Canadian innovation system to a "collaborate to compete together" model, we will see more of this kind of thinking permeate the policy and practice of enabling both invention and innovation. This is an open, participatory, and people-centred innovation, and it is coming soon to an organization near you.

On the topic of better linking education to the needs of industry  I was interviewed for a MacLean's piece recently that discusses "the missing link": the disconnect between student expectations and finding a job. Unfortunately, the writer told only half the story here in terms of quoting me as saying that the university system does not teach about jobs, whereas the college system does. And there is a good reason for this. Universities have always prided themselves as being outside the purview of the reality of explicit job training (with the exception of professional programs). The college system on the other hand is an instrument of the state created to ensure there is an adequate work force. Both are necessary; neither alone is sufficient.

Polytechnics Canada and Conspicuous Contribution to Public Policy

The Annual Polytechnics Canada conference convened at Humber College last week, once again offering excellent discussion and contributions to Canadian public policy. "Learning that works" was the theme that saw very good keynote presentations ranging from insight from the Swiss education model to the changes being undertaken in Ontario. On the latter, MTCU Deputy Minister Sheldon Levy provided insights on innovating education, drawing on his work leading the Digital Media Zone Ryerson University.

Michael Horn, Co-Founder and Distinguished Fellow from Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation provided excellent insights into the disruption of education, showing how personalization of education and micro-credentials are setting up a sea change in the way education is proffered and taken. The rise of micro-credentials is something I've been interested in for some time, something I've outlined in a Globe and Mail op-ed in 2012 called Education should take a lesson from the open-source movement.

Another keynote by Jeff Selingo, Columnist for the Washington Post gave the crowd some additional insights into the employer context, specifically around the skills needed to thrive in the innovation economy. Career navigation is important to the current and ensuing generations, and providing skills such as curiosity, grit, creativity and contextual thinking are hallmarks of innovation literacy. GBC Research supports skills development with validation in micro-credentials via our innovation skills badges.

Navigation requires skills, which become the sextant for the innovation economy, enabling students to measure the angles between where they are and where they wish to go. Once again, Polytechnics Canada convenes a conference that demonstrates thought leadership through conspicuous contribution to public policy. 

Collaborate to Compete

Also the title of a recent book, the phrase Collaborate to Compete aptly describes the philosophy of CONII, and the move of Ontario Colleges to work together to provide a virtual research cluster or network model to facilitate application of applied research into industrial contexts. I heard about this book from a former colleague, and the core idea is a good one. The basic idea is that we can be stronger if we work together.

I thought of this book and the concept this morning while at the CONII Industry Strategy Board. This was my first attendance at this meeting, and I was impressed by the commitment of representatives from industry to the College applied research agenda. The discussion about collaboration was predicated on the application of the CONII model into industrial contexts. That is, CONII is a consortium of colleges that are collaborating on applied research. Each college either leads or is a part of a particular node on the network. If a potential industrial research partner contacts a college, and that college does not have the expertise in that area, the idea is that this college would forward the potential partner to one of the CONII member colleges that specialize in the area of concern. This is an ideal application of the virtual research cluster: an emergent phenomenon that is gaining traction with the spread of ubiquitous broadband and the ancillary network effects.

This model of collaboration and conspicuous contribution is counter to the historical competitive model that all colleges have grown in to (indeed, it is the hallmark of business in general). The idea that we can collaborate to compete has its roots in the strengths of network thinking and the kind of transparency encouraged by open source, and perhaps even the credo of hiding in plain site.

It was pointed out at the meeting that to make CONII work will require a lot of trust. The first steps have already been taken.

On interaction, integration

Here are some more thoughts on people-centred innovation following this train of thought:

Some time ago I read a book by the founder of Ideo in which they talk a lot about human centred design. In trolling through the G-List search string I came across their site for a human centred design toolkit, "A free innovation guide for social enterprises and NGOs worldwide." It's worth a look. The principles of human centred design (HCD) are, as I've indicated earlier, highly amenable and adaptable to innovation. Focusing on how any innovation will have downstream impact - from people to social/economic productivity - is an essential way to ensure adoption. As noted in my twitter feed a while ago, "adoptation" is my new word to describe applied research and promoting the adoption/adaptation of innovation. Adoptation requires integrated thinking, it requires interaction among the users and producers of innovation, and it requires us to think about the people who will use a new product or service from the outset of design. it also requires conspicuous contribution - an open source approach to collaboration and complementarity.

"no one is as smart as everyone": crowdsourcing and virtual research clusters

Here is a good article that looks at crowdsourcing with a keen discussion on its benefits and limitations. An open source approach to IP generation and innovation generally is clearly the model for building innovation systems such as what I've proposed in the discussion about a virtual or distributed research cluster, using the precepts of open innovation. But the point made in this article about balancing crowdsourcing with the encouragement of individuals is very trenchant. This illustrates the principle of innovation literacy at all levels of the workforce, what we call the multiplier effect. Conspicuous contribution in open innovation systems is the new normal for the innovation economy.

On collaboration

Recently I wrote about the collaborate to compete model of conspicuous contribution. I've been thinking a lot more about this lately as I've been working on building new partnerships around an existing project. I support the principles of open source learning and sharing information, methodologies, study designs etc. Often it's a balancing act between the desire to take credit for original work and the inclination to share freely the "academic source code" of our research designs. We can extend this thought to the development of technology and other intellectual property that arises from research. Having participated in the creation of many technologies over the past 10 years that have been taken to market to varying levels, I realize this is an issue that requires much forethought.

PEPTalk is one such technology. My colleague from Centennial College, Lynda Atack, and I have been awarded several grants to research and develop this technology that are enabling us to situate the use of PEPTalk within clinical environments over the next several years. This project is top of mind as we are now launching the second clinical deployment in a Family Health Team at the Toronto Western Hospital, after a successful usability trial there and in other clinics over the past year.

This past March I received a Standard Research Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for the Advanced Patient Education for Cancer Survivors (APECS) project. Lynda and I have designed a study building on our earlier work that will integrate PEPTalk within the Cancer Survivorship program at Princess Margaret Hospital. We will work with colleagues at the University of Toronto to move the technology to the next level. We are engaged in a research design project for health informatics that combines our earlier work on usability with attempts to measure changes in self-efficacy.

We are using a quasi-experimental, pre-test post-test, mixed methods design that will measure the impact of the designated websites on five primary outcomes: 1) patient and clinician website usage, 2) patient and clinician satisfaction, 3) patient self-efficacy regarding disease management, empowerment and health behaviour activities, 4) site maintainability and 5) organizational support and uptake.

Our data collection instruments include a series of surveys we designed in combination with other surveys and evaluation metrics. I am looking forward to this study, which is being initiated and administered from George Brown College. I am particularly interested in testing our study design, which is also being used by colleagues in Princess Margaret Hospital to test other health informatics products.

Sharing our academic source code in this way helps us advance the science of health informatics. It also helps us learn from others.