Innovation Nation at Innovation Edge
May 21st, 2008 | By Emma Wallace | Category: Events, NewsOverall yesterday impressed me from start to finish really.
The day started oddly… as I strolled along the banks of the Thames, the sun shining brightly, I was asked to move aside so that Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson could film outside the National Theatre. Celebrity spotting as I made my way with all the other people wearing the orange passes for NESTA’s Innovation Edge conference at the Royal Festival Hall, I felt like it was just going to be one of those great days. One of those days that opens up your eyes and delivers a refreshing slap in the face.
Unfortunately I missed the first celeb, Tim Berners-Lee (podcast here) but made it into the main auditorium to listen to Bob Geldof and am I so glad I did. He was captivating, pragmatic and fascinating. A truly great man in my opinion and one who demonstrates his understanding of the world around him with clarity and conviction. So many well made points but here are two of my favourites…
The Power of Unreasonable People…Geldof said that today’s social entrepreneurs are George Bernard Shaw’s unreasonable people. Those with the power to change the world, those upon whom we depend. A nice reminder to pick up that copy of The Power of Unreasonable People on my bookshelf and read it.
“Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.” George Bernard Shaw
The fear of failing. Something I often raise when thinking innovation. The culture of blame that is often found inside organisations is killing innovation and innovative behaviour in general. People don’t try if they fear being hounded should the idea fail. I agree wholeheartedly with Geldof’s comments “We so fear failure that we no longer try anything…The essence of entrepreneurialism is to try and fail…We need to celebrate the attempt at trying.” And I loved his acknowledgement that the entrepreneur and the manager are different types of people. We need both, something often overlooked.
A couple of beautiful quotes from the day…
“Ideas form a perfect syncronicity with the moment” Sir Bob Geldof
“Bono is small and fat and I’m not” Sir Bob Geldof
“Stop talking, shut up get on with it” Sir Bob Geldof
You can listen to a podcast of Bob’s session in full from the NESTA website and I strongly recommend that you do, especially if you are ever feeling that the UK doesn’t have a culture of innovation.
Social Networks - the new cities? This caused a mild twitter explosion (Lloyd Davis has captured his feelings on his blog ). Inviting the twitterati to comment and referring to them at the beginning and end but not so much during of the discussion was the cause of much frustration in my opinion. This wasn’t intentional I’m sure and I had a brief but interesting chat with Charles Leadbeater on the subject afterwards. A few of us were discussing successful integration of Twitter with live conferences and maybe this is something that could be incorporated next time, although possibly not quite the hecklebot mentioned!
I think it’s important to remember that yesterday was not a Web2.0 conference, it was a conference about innovation and it was a gathering of many people from many different places. Many people on many different journeys with one thing in common. I think it’s important to remember that. Those who get this whole Web2.0/Enterprise2.0/social web thing - whatever you want to call this journey we are on - and love it, should be working to help others to love it too. So lesson learnt by all I hope, myself included.
I salute NESTA , Roland Harwood and friends for bringing blogs, Twitter and social networking to the main stage. I was inspired, amused and thoroughly impressed. I met new friends, had some great conversations and am now even more fascinated at finding out what else is going on this little island of ours.
On a final note, in amongst all this celebrity one thing stood out for me more than anything. During the break I, like many others, checked out the stands and displays in the foyer. I stopped to chat to the kids from Making a Mint . Smiling faces, great big excited eyes, LOADS to say and confident to say it to absolute strangers. “We DID this and we MADE these and we…HAD FUN” That’s what innovation is about in my opinion. Creativity, belief, excitement, passion and just loads of fun. An outstanding example to us all.
Quite right! Not much has been said about the exhibition side, and there were some interesting things there. With regard to the twitter goings on, perhaps it is a positive sign :- people want to participate and contribute. That must be part of the beginning of innovation. A Stirling day!
The sound-bite from Tim Berners-Lee which you missed was “Vague but Exciting”. This was the summary from his boss, when he submitted his proposal to invent the whole world wide web thing. The key was that his boss didn’t actually categorically say “no” to the proposal, so this was taken as a green light by the project team (in the margins of some not insignificant projects involving CERN).
I’m new to the www-thing, how did you get your authority rating on technorati ?
Benjamin - there were some great things going on the exhibition. I wish I’d got round all of it. Re the Twitterati - yes, absolutely. People want to participate and join in, which is great news - a frustrated crowd is better than a bored one always imho. Many are used to more *interactive* events I suppose. It’s food for thought for the next one (and indeed I hope there is a next one).
I’m going to catch up with the podcasts esp. Tim Berners-Lee - interesting and often made comment re great innovations (Post-It notes story etc) that the attitude is much more “act now, seek forgiveness later” i.e those who fear no failure.
www technorati authority rating ????? I have absolutely no idea
I had no idea I was rated. Just do it and it’ll happen I suppose.
BTW great conversation going on at NESTA Blog http://is.gd/k8F Thanks to Dominic ( http://is.gd/k8I ) for link.
@TransportInnovation, authority rating comes from people citing your blog… comes with time… On the “Vague but interesting” comment, I noted Tim’s reaction - he didn’t find out about that until about 10 years later, I think he mentioned it was when they cleaned out his supervisors desk after his death (note to self - tidy desk
).
@Emma - Next time I’ll do some interviews at the exhibition I hope - I didn’t get to take it all in.
In fact, I’m still digesting it all!
WOW!!! Now I can see that your iPhone not only enabled you to contribute to the twittering - but also provided a great way to take notes… your post has been a great souvenir of the day for me
Thanks