Needed: Innovative thinking on innovation
L Naiman ©2010
It’s the same story every year. Canada’s performance in productivity and innovation remains poor.
Eugene Lang and Diana Carney in a Globe and Mail article published today, say “Successive governments have attempted to tackle the issue, yet progress is as elusive as ever.”
I suspect it’s because much of the focus in the past has been on technology. We need also need to create a culture that support creative thinking, and innovation in spheres beyond R&D.
Lang and Carney ask some great questions:
What makes Canada a less entrepreneurial country than the United States? Why are Canadian university graduates less focused on bringing their ideas to market than their counterparts to the south? And can we change this culture or, at the very least, encourage Canadian entrepreneurs to stay here, rather than setting up shop south of the border?
They make some sound recommendations to help Canada compete globally:
Making government support to innovation more transparent (and accountable) would also help. At present, the federal government delivers a disproportionately high proportion of its support to innovation through indirect tax credits. This results in long-term but opaque funding. Grants and loans would be far easier to track – and cancel if they were not working – and more likely to have a stimulating effect.
A further option for government is to become more strategic in supporting those sectors in which Canada has clear advantages (not just natural resources, but agriculture, aerospace, infrastructure and education, for example). This would require a change in culture: regional sensibilities have militated against such support in the past. It would also require more attention to stimulating trade.
All mature economies wish to increase trade with the dynamic Asian countries: what can take Canada to the front of the queue? Our natural resources clearly give us leverage, but we cannot take that for granted. If we want to ship gas and oil to Asia, we must make sure we have the domestic infrastructure (think pipelines and shipping terminals) in place. But we have to bring more to the table. We have to collaborate and cross-invest in the development of innovative energy products and services. We have to strengthen ties and mutual understanding through educational links between our countries. We have to find ways to help Asian countries respond to their own pressing challenges, including resource issues but also social and environmental concerns.
Source: Needed: Innovative thinking on innovation – The Globe and Mail.
Does your organization need to get innovative about innovation? What drivers do you have in place to support an innovation-friendly culture? What barriers get in the way?
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totally easy, if you understand that all ideas are *received* … they are not made, or strategized, or even discovered … they are received, from the higher consciousness or the collective consciousness, where they already exist.
refine your awareness, all you need is revealed. best done by meditation, of course.
Thanks for your comment Gregory. Meditation is an excellent way to tap into new insights and inspirations, and I highly recommend it.
Innovation is certainly something the US has excelled in. But things are changing. Check out the TED talk by Alex Tabarrok, On How Ideas Trump Crises. The world needs more innovators. Let’s start figuring out how to get more in Canada.
Bob
Hello Linda,
This soul searching or navel gazing is not confined to Canada, I think within the present world of global downturn, innovation becomes more the salvation of heading off crisis. The EU has yesterday announced a signficant program of innovation grants, incentives etc. Each country has to keep working at applying solutions that fit their reguirements, legal system and administration. Canada may keep looking across the border but it is foten one of those countries that simply ‘quietly deliver’s’ and perhaps should ‘toot’ its own horm a little more in some of its areas of expertise, which you are closer too than I am
Thanks Bob. The Ted talk is excellent, and underscores the truism that out of crisis comes opportunity..we need to get creative to figure out what that is.
Thanks for your comments Paul. I wish we had more innovation programs in Canada, like the ones being introduced in the EU, but there needs to be an appetite for this in the business community, and frankly I don’t see much of an appetite in Canada.
Today Business is a very tough task, and you have a good Business Creativity thinking to carry up our business. I truly agree with you.
Here is a website that provides a medium to stimulate creative thinking for your interest from a cloud workshop.
http://www.tdassist.com