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.

Innovation and Human Centred Design

An excellent article in today's Globe and Mail discusses the relationship of human-centred design and the business of innovation. In "Extreme affordability: Why we must wear the user’s shoes," Neil Seeman and Kenneth Lam illustrate how important it is to foster a user-centred perspective when designing any innovation and its ultimate integration into practical use. Theirs is a case study in the need for applied research and experimental development - the two latter phases of research according to the OECD Frascati Manual - where low cost solutions are found by putting ones self into the everyday experience of the end user of a particular product or service.

There are many examples of this approach around George Brown College. From Jamie McIntyre's (CCET) innovative approach to New Product Development using a quasi experimental/retrospective approach to user inclusion, to RJ Clements' (CSHS) experimentation with the Wu Casting Technique to lower the cost of prosthetics for third world applications, many GBC programs such as the Institute without Boundaries and the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Community Innovation (BA&D),  integrate this approach. The Research Commercialization and Innovation teaches this explicitly because we understand the necessity to equip our graduates with an innovation literacy that includes the ability to understand the end-user experience as a foundation for building future innovative products, services, and processes.

As I've noted earlier, our expertise in human centred and participatory design informs our approach to collaborative problem solving with our partners.

Design, innovation

An excellent article in today's Globe and Mail illustrates how recessions are good times to focus on research and development. In "Rewards go to those with courage to innovate," Eric Reguly outlines how the depression of the 1930s gave rise to many of the last century's great innovations.

This makes sense. In a time when we are all asked to make do with less, innovators turn to maximizing returns (from products and processes). In so doing, new and innovative ways of thinking, doing, and producing emerge.

As College applied research capacity has been established to complement the R&D continuum in Canada - itself a process innovation of sorts - we have an opportunity to look at ways we can add value to the traditional resource extraction role that Canada has played. One way to do this is through design.

Sara Diamond, president of the Ontario College of Art and Design, penned a very good piece in the 29 December issue of the Globe on the role design can and should play. (This article, inexplicably, in unavailable on the Globe's website.) "Designing our way to a stronger economy" offers an excellent prescription for how design, including participatory and human-centred design, can help industries add value to products and services. "Design is essential to Canada's science and technology strategy" Diamond asserts, having application in all of the priority areas, and "Countries that rank highly in innovation and competitiveness invest in design."

George Brown College's School of Design - recently voted one of the best design schools in the world - plays a key role in the GBC Research Labs. Incorporating design into our suite of services is one way we offer a return on investment and a return on innovation.

Looking back, Looking ahead: Investing in Applied Research

Properly speaking a post so titled should come in January, but as we close out the year I thought it would be useful to summarize some key points from the past year, but more importantly, what I see as some key themes that I will be focusing on in the year ahead.

The past year has been a good one for applied research, for polytechnics, and for colleges engaged in instigating industry innovation. The Federal R&D Review is one of the more significant policy opportunities that emerged, with its focus on business innovation and what public policy measures can be taken to foster this. There can be no debate that we need to increase productivity and our national capacity to innovate. Polytechnics and colleges involved in industry applied research are working toward this and have made strong gains in the past year. Government sponsorship is helping us to help industry innovate. The increased funding we have received is not part of a zero sum game that pits colleges, polytechnics and universities against one another. The internecine reflex that encourages such thinking prevents us from moving forward.

For the year ahead I have three themes:

1. The diffusion of innovation: to my point above, our ability to be responsive to the innovation and productivity challenges that beset us is contingent on complementarity and cooperation. This doesn't mean less of a focus on excellence. Rather, it means focusing on excellence while promoting a national, participatory and unified perspective on fostering greater business innovation. The intentional application of applied research and innovation services to industry needs and contexts means we focus less on discovery, and more on the design and diffusion of incremental innovation. Our focus is not on us, but on what we can do downstream by enabling industry innovation.
2. People-centred innovation is a grounded way to promote participatory innovation - our way of engaging students, faculty and our partners, using the principles of human-centred design. This approach, contiguous with open innovation, fosters innovation literacy in our graduates while being focused on the downstream results of our work, as noted above, while being mindful of stakeholder needs. This is an outside-in, versus an inside-out approach, meaning we need to adopt the perspective of those we are working with and for. This is a basic precept of participatory design that lets us see our responsibility (to improving innovation and productivity for example) against any perceived right (to obtain funding for research). People-centred innovation acknowledges that innovation is a social activity.
3. Using our imagination. It is time to modernize the Canadian postsecondary environment and create a national innovation system that clearly articulates universities, polytechnics and colleges. This new national system will be receptive to industry engagement, and will foster innovation literacy at all levels of HQSP. Doing this requires a collective will to imagine the future where we can compete in the global innovation economy. To do this we need to take research from ideas to invoice: we must craft an Innovation Policy that encourages firms to invest in R&D and provides an "any point of contact" entry to link industry with our postsecondary institutions (PSIs). Doing so will achieve a threefold ROI:
• A Return on Interest from basic research that provokes thought and ideas, leading to disruptive innovations through long term research investment;
• A Return on Innovation from applied research that increases industry R&D spending and our collective capacity to innovate, leading to improved productivity; and
• A Return on Investment from experimental development through the creation of new products and processes and through the training of students, who enter the workforce ready to innovate.

 All of us implicated in the Canadian innovation system have a responsibility - a response-ability - to step up and continue to work together with each other and other players in the system. We need to think past the immediate and see the longer term goals of improving social and economic prosperity. In these tumultuous and kinetic times, our productivity challenges demand this of us.

"There's no such thing as a science of innovation"

Shlomo Maital, noted economist and innovation guru, gave a talk to the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto the other day, in which he reminded the audience that "There's no such thing as a science of innovation." Science is based on the premise of contingent knowledge, whereby current understandings of the world are testable and evolve as we observe, review, and learn about phenomena. Maital's premise is that innovation is about breaking rules: there is no science inherent to innovation. Innovation is likened to the state of creativity a child has before going to school. Those who survive school with creativity intact are more likely to succeed in entrepreneurial activity, Maital posits. His talk - "Stumbling on the Star Trek Principle: Innovation Secrets of da Vinci, Edison, Einstein and Picasso" - outlined his view that, in order to succeed at disruptive innovation, we must "boldly go where no one has gone before". This is particularly important now, in the midst of a global depression, as history teaches us that depressions are the fulcrum for great innovation. Loathe to deploy business school jargon, Maital invoked the "paradigm shift," whereby the rules by which we do business will be fundamentally rewritten. Every single industry, he says, will rewrite its rules. Those who do the writing will emerge as the new leaders.

Many pundits have weighed in on similar issues, and there is evidence to support Maital's claims that innovation emerges from depressions. His trenchant question--what will the new rules of the game be?--can be resolved only through a creativity that leads to thinking differently. We must also be amenable to failure. "A reason to fail is a powerful lever for innovation," as it is the freedom to learn from failure that is the hallmark of innovators. "Innovation is breaking the rules" he says, and our ability to imagine the future (via a "future photograph"), combined with an ability to learn from mistakes, lets us enable a future state.

Maital ended with a call to action, to use the principles of design to design our lives. This is the basic principle of the Innovation Support Services that we use in our applied research services. That is, we focus on the intentional application of design and expertise within our faculty and student community to support innovative activity within the College and within industry partnerships. Design for us is the fulcrum for solving industry problems. A triad of programs at George Brown College--the Institute without Boundaries, the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Community Innovation, and the Research Commercialization and Innovation programs--all have design as a component of their educational programming. The GBC Research Labs has expertise in human centred and participatory design, and this informs our approach to collaborative problem solving with our partners.

While there may be no science of innovation, there is definitely a need for science in innovation. The intentional application of applied research and innovation services to industry needs and contexts means we focus less on discovery, and more on the design and diffusion of innovation - how to test the practicality of new products or services (adoption and adaptation). This application requires disciplined approaches to problem solving, to induce innovation and encourage its incipient growth.

Design and the Business of Innovation

Following on the heels of my last post - "There's no such thing as a science of innovation" - I've been giving more thought to the business of design and its relation to innovation. As noted in that post, the GBC Research Labs offers our industry partners Innovation Support Services that comprise the intentional application of design and expertise within our faculty and student community to support industry projects. Design is "a new and underestimated aspect of innovation," according to the Science, Technology and Innovation Council (p. vii), and is one way that Canada can differentiate itself in the innovation marketplace. While there are many facets to design, design in all of its permutations is certainly on the ascendancy in terms of its relative merit to the science, technology and innovation enterprise.

As I noted earlier, the GBC Research Labs focuses on human centred and participatory design in our approach to innovation support and problem solving. Our staff are trained in these methods and precepts, and are expert at engaging all of our stakeholders in the applied research projects we undertake. This underscores our mandate of complementarity in the R&D continuum. I read recently about a distinction between science and technology that has its antecedents in 19th century industrialism. Science in this context is about discovery,whereas technology is about applying discoveries to problem solving.

University of Toronto President David Naylor, in his recent column in the alumni magazine, draws on this distinction as he outlines his view on the role of "Universities and the Innovation Economy." Naylor acknowledges the BERD|HERD disparity that hampers innovation in Canada, and posits a basic and functional antimetabole about the role of research in general:

Think of it this way. When industry does or sponsors applied research, necessity is the mother of invention. That’s an excellent source of incremental innovation. But when basic research is taken to the marketplace, invention becomes the mother of necessity. And whole new industries can emerge on the backs of disruptive technologies.

Key here is the difference between incremental and disruptive innovation. Both are essential components of the innovation equation.

There's no recession in research: Report from Innovation 2010

ACCT Canada's conference Innovation 2010 concluded yesterday having featured some excellent discussions on building out the Canadian innovation system. Coming on the heels of the successful Polytechnics Canada Showcase, Innovation 2010 brought together R&D professionals from across the country to talk about action steps for continuing to build a complementary R&D system in the country. This is a good evolution from my first experience with the ACCT conference where the discussion was about why collaborate in the PSE sector to how should we collaborate to better enable industry to get inventions and innovations to market.

There were many excellent presentations and discussions - the format was particularly amenable to fostering lots of good dialog. Several things stuck out for me: SSHRC President Chad Gaffield spoke of the emergence of "people centred innovation" that he feels defines the 21st century. This resonates with me strongly given my own focus on human-centred design and how GBC Research integrates this into our approach to the diffusion of innovation. Steven Liss, VPR Queen's University, talked about how we should "own the podium" with respect to R&D and its commercialization. This echoes the "aggressive commercialization" that John Molloy (Partek, also at Queen's) made (see my note on my R&D Panel submission). Owning the podium means we need to pick winners and set priorities,which is in contrast to the usual approach Canada takes where we seek fair representation from all regions/sectors.

The title of this post is taken from a comment said to me by Brian Barber, VP of UHN's Development Corporation. He was referring to the fact that, even though there is a world wide recession that is impacting the availability of capital to take ideas to market, there is no shortage of ideas emerging from the research labs and industry partners we collectively engage with. This is a good reminder to focus our innovation efforts well.

Soft Landings and International Applied Research

I traveled recently to Brazil as part of George Brown College's international education outreach. While there, I met with the research offices and faculty of three institutions with whom we are developing international education partnerships. Our core mandate of giving students applied research experience as a vital component of their education fits the Brazilian context very well. The development of innovation literacy is a global core competency for international economic and social development.

In 2004 Brazil enacted the Law of Innovation, an explicit attempt by the government of Brazil to foster business innovation and academic and industry partnerships. I was struck by the parallels with Brazil and Canada - each are encouraging academic-industry partnerships as mechanisms to foster productivity improvement and the diffusion of innovation across their national economies. Brazil's Law of Innovation offers funding and political support for business innovation as linked to academic knowledge transfer and expertise deployment.

The parallels between Canada's and Brazil's fostering of business innovation makes international education an attractive proposition for Brazilian students wishing to learn in Canada about how we promote innovation literacy through industry applied research. Students acquire innovation literacy and entrepreneurship as a by-product of the development of the core skills relevant to their job-ready programs. We have an incredible opportunity to learn from and with our Brazilian counterparts in the applied research space. Canada has perhaps more history of academic-industry collaborative applied research - this is something international students will gain through study in Canada, particularly if this study includes the opportunity to work on industry applied research. These students can then apply what they learned to Brazilian social and economic development. Canadian polytechnics and colleges can learn from the emergent nature of the Brazilian economy, and add value to applied research through a deeper understanding of contexts such as exists in Brazil. The sheer magnitude of Brazil's population makes their markets very attractive for Canadian companies. It is the opportunities in the Brazilian market, contiguous with providing education that will foster innovation throughout international study, that are key for international economic cooperation and development.

One institution I visited was the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), which is home to TechnoPUC - the technology transfer and business innovation arm of PUCRS. What impressed me most about TechnoPUCS - besides their impressive track record in a short time and the quality and number of partner firms working there - was their commitment to business innovation as a driver of social and economic productivity development. Most importantly, I learned about what they call the "soft landing" for companies seeking to enter Brazil's markets. This is an interesting and innovative approach to economic development, one that acknowledges the emergent role of Brazil's economy, and leverages the interests of academic institutions as oriented toward enabling international companies to understand and thus succeed in Brazil. There is a direct correlation between the idea of the soft landing in Brazil and conducting applied research using the principles of human-centred design. That is, both offer an avenue of applied research and social and economic development through keen understanding of local conditions that will enable success. This is a form of people-centred innovation laudable for its focus on the development and support of international companies and the development writ large of Brazil's economy, and so social infrastructure. This is a very forward-thinking approach that mobilizes the innovative capacity of academic institutions to support national productivity growth goals. It mirrors the instrumental approach we take to aiding business innovation through applied research here in Canada:

The key for college applied research is instrumentality, or the intentional application of applied research and innovation services to industry needs and contexts. This means that we are focused on addressing the industry problems faced by firms who are seeking to innovate and create new value in their sectors. We are an explicit instrument for addressing these industry problems, meaning that we respond to what is needed, fitting into the R&D continuum for latter stage innovation support.

CONII, and indeed the entire Ontario Network of Excellence, is similarly oriented to providing soft landings - and/or launchings - to Canadian companies. This concept is one that needs deployment on a national scale, something George Brown College and many others have pointed out in submissions to the R&D Review Panel.

The connection between national approaches to integrating business innovation within economic development activities and the connection to education, as noted above, are important here. Entire workforces equipped with innovation literacy are a main driver of national economies and a strong predictor of future productivity and innovation. The multiplier effect that college and polytechnic graduates provide to our own national workforce is a key component of the college and polytechnic advantage, and a signal opportunity for international students to learn from while studying here in Canada. The global innovation economy stands to benefit from this approach.

Entrepreneurship, or, Enabling the Innovation Economy

I've been giving innovation and entrepreneurship a lot of thought - particularly since we are having a whole day on this at the Polytechnics Canada conference on 5 and 6 May. Part of the conference will be working sessions designed to articulate solutions that leverages all aspects of the education and innovation system and the innovation skills needed for Canadian productivity.

One thing that I came across recently that is of interest to anyone in this space: Skills for Innovation and Research (2011) OECD Publishing. There is a good definition of entrepreneurship, including the summation: "creativity seems to be a necessary but not sufficient precondition of entrepreneurship." To this I would add the ability to analyze, think critically, and focus on human-centred product or process development and what I have called "adoptation"--the ability to adopt and adapt: precepts central to innovation literacy.

I've written before on the double helix nature of the multiplier effect needed for our "innovation DNA": the need for both graduate/undergraduate trained innovators with complementary STEM/nonSTEM skills as essential for productive innovation. A mixture of skills is needed for innovation, but this mixture is always in flux. There is no static model for what constitutes the optimal mix of skills as these are variable and according to the need of innovation-in-context. This is a very important point as it means there is no magic bullet solution for fixing innovation. Rather, we need a constant commitment to reinvention and an additive ability to learn, to translate (user needs to design specifications, for example), to embrace change and adoptation. These skills are additive both in terms of what it means to an individual and in terms of the multiplier effect in work groups or teams, but also in the ongoing iterative nature of innovation that builds on histories of innovation and invention.

OECD's Skills for Innovation and Research tells us that there are several influencers of what innovation skill sets are required. These include: "the stage of innovation, the type of innovation, and the industry structure," to which I would add industry context vis-à-vis other industries. This last point refers to concepts such as open innovation, participatory innovation, and the ability for firms to collaborate across industries. Here again, the OECD Innovation Strategy skills show the value of nonSTEM skills as a complement to STEM skills in providing ways to develop business ideas based on science. Technical skills are the substrate on which innovation is based. We must assume this "ground", and look at the ancillary skills we associate with innovation literacy as being the "figure" of innovation. This figure is the entrepreneur, set against the backdrop of innovation-in-context.

One thing this OECD document states is that "More evidence is needed on the relationship between specific skill groups and innovation" (12). I've not mentioned this in this space before, but GBC is leading a large scale study on Measuring Innovation Literacy that will do this - the first of its kind in Canada. I'll post more on this study later, but our hypothesis is that we will show the value of the double multiplier, particularly the STEM/nonSTEM mix aspect - to be crucial to improving our innovative capacity as a country. In the Skills for Innovation section (p31 ff) we see the difficulty of coming up with a taxonomy of sorts to define what is needed to foster innovation. This is our collective opportunity to define the genre of innovation in Canada. That is, a complementary mix of skills is needed, including a solid grounding in STEM disciplines. But innovation leadership requires more than this. STEM grads need business training in order to fully realize their place in the innovation economy. Managerial and entrepreneurial talent are the purview of nonSTEM disciplines. This does not get enough discussion. Pundits typically decry the lack of STEM skills in North American society - and to be sure we need scientific literacy firmly grounded in our educational psyche. But we must not ignore the nonSTEM disciplines as adding a lot of value to the mix. Again, this is not a zero-sum game. (As an aside, here are two Twitter posts on both sides of this equation: People-Centred Innovation: WSJ.com - Vint Cerf's Opinion: How to Fire Up U.S. Innovation and Want Innovative Thinking? Hire from the Humanities. My opinion: neither is right; neither is wrong.)

Education is the single biggest element of innovation here - providing it, encouraging it, and supporting it life-long, and life-wide. What I am arguing for here is an "entrepreneurial upskilling" of STEM/nonSTEM talent alike, as well as the need for innovation literacy at all levels of the workforce. Complementarity of education systems - university, polytechnic and college - is essential. Here the OECD tells us that universities are adept at disruptive innovation and basic research, whereas the vocational college/polytechnic is adept at incremental innovation - the applied research and experimental development parts of the innovation value chain. Both are necessary. This complementary linkage of differentiated actors in the educational/innovation system was nicely highlighted in the discussion that followed my appearance, alongside Queen's University's John Molloy at the R&D Review Panel last December.

The Public Policy Forum recently published Innovation Next: Leading Canada to Greater Productivity, Competitiveness and Resilience, which further underscores the need for bold leadership across and within sectors and silos. We are all oriented to the same goal of increasing and improving our productivity. Our discussion in May will be drawing on these insights and leveraging the group convened to push this agenda forward. Entrepreneurship is key to enabling the innovation economy. The responsibility for improving innovation does not rest on any one system actor, group, or set of disciplines. Rather, it is in the mix of a people-centred, participatory innovation.

Drawers of ideas and the privilege of the a priori

The Public Policy Forum today hosted a Leadership Roundtable on Canada's Global Science, Technology and Innovation Priorities, sponsored by DFAIT, which I was fortunate to attend. The discussion was excellent and focused on how Canada can better position itself internationally to enable soft landings - both outbound and in coming - for Canadian business to realize international markets as well as to link international businesses to Canadian contexts, linking to our world-leading S&T capacity. This capacity is reflected in our leading university research facilities, our college and  polytechnic applied research capacity, and the conjoint post-secondary training ground that makes us the world leader in producing highly qualified and skilled personnel (i.e. graduates) for the innovation economy.

Greater integration of our capabilities as a country will enable us to better sell Canada as an investment destination. This is the notion of complementarity and the need to better connect the academic enterprise with industry. We can call this P3RD - the public+private partnership model for R&D. In my last post on this, P3RD: Public Private Partnerships in Research and Development, I outlined the notion of what in my title today I refer to as the privilege of the a priori:

the privileging of basic research over applied research in Canada - of the theoretical over the practical or commercialization aspects of R&D - can be read as a symptom of our collective historical identity as "hewers of wood and drawers of water". Basic research sans commercialization is just one more example of how Canada exports raw commodities (ideas) without adding value (commercialization of these ideas). To move past raw commodity exports and adding value through product design is key to Canada's future productivity, and P3RD - which the recent budget explicitly promotes - is a positive path to follow in this regard.

In this sense Canada is also a drawer of ideas - we come up with good ideas but leave it to others to commercialize. Ideas are just another basic resource that we draw from the land and export without adding value.

[Aside]I am reminded of the Roman poet Horace who, among other  things, said that the poet should put a poem away in a drawer for nine years before bringing it back to see if it is still good. Perhaps we have been too focused on the idea of putting things away (in publications) - drawing ideas, putting them away in drawers.You get the idea. Another thing Horace said is instructive to our discussion about instrumentality: "Mix pleasure and profit, and you are safe." This relates well to the need to mix the academic and industry communities - where applicable - for Canadian productivity and innovation capacity. [/Aside]

The timing of this roundtable was excellent, particularly given the OECD's release yesterday of Canada's country report. The report says that "Canada needs to boost innovation and human capital to sustain living standards," and offers more fodder to the need for Canada to increase our innovation quotient. The Economic Survey of Canada 2012 makes many good points relating to Canada's innovation capacity and economic growth, including the advice that "Greater integration of technical, business, communications and industry training within tertiary programmes could contribute to innovation and improving graduate skills." This integration exemplifies the notion of people centred innovation, and is what George Brown College and other colleges and polytechnics are doing with regards to the integration of applied research in course curricula. This leads to students acquiring innovation literacy skills that are our hedge against future innovation capacity and potential for the economy. The OECD's Canada report and the idea of better integration of these components coincides with the recent launch of the OECD Skills Strategy. This is a good resource for anyone with an interest in innovation.

All told, the roundtable ended on a very optimistic note. Canada is in a much better place now than it was five years ago with respect to the capacity we have to leverage our basic and applied R&D capacity. We are much better now at linking with industry for common goals. And we have a much more refined sense of the innovation ecosystem and the complementary roles universities, colleges and industry play in improving Canada's innovation and productivity.

SSHRC launches new Strategic Plan

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) has recently launched an updated Strategic Plan: Advancing Knowledge for Canada’s Future. Three objectives are outlined:

• To enable excellence in a changing research landscape
• To create opportunities for research and training through collaborative initiatives
• To connect social sciences and humanities research with Canadians 

The document is well worth a read - the social and human sciences are increasingly important to realizing the value of innovation and the Strategic Plan shows why. I am a proud supporter of SSHRC and a member  of their Programs and Quality Committee.  This has given me a front row seat to the excellent work SSHRC sponsors across universities and colleges.

While the important of science, technology engineering and math (STEM) are well touted in the media, perhaps less understood is the role of design, business, and social innovation in the overall innovation discussion. SSHRC President Ted Hewitt, states in the document that "The humanities and social sciences have contributed much to our understanding and appreciation of Canada’s rich history, ethnic and cultural diversity and dynamic rural and urban economies." Here at GBC to prove this we need look no further than four recently awarded social innovation research awards from SSHRC - read about our four research teams here.

As the government works on a new Innovation Agenda, SSHRC's updated Strategic Plan offers a key road map for investment and increasing social and economic productivity and prosperity in Canada. A participatory, people-centred innovation agenda will maximize input from the humanities and social sciences and ensure that Canada continues to lead in research excellence and its application into areas of national importance.