Archive: Innovation & Entrepreneurship
The Ten Habits of Mass Innovation
Nesta Provocation 01: November 2006
Innovation by the masses, not just for them. This pamphlet argues that Britain will have to become a society of mass innovation in future, a place where creativity and innovation are everyday activities, practised in many settings by many different people. We can no longer rely on innovation as something produced by an elite of special people working in special places, the creative class in their cultural quarter or the boffins in the lab. The pamphlet sets out the ten key features of a society that would promote innovation as a mass, everyday activity.
Download a PDF version here
Read my artcile in the Financial Times here
The User Innovation Revolution
How Business Can Unlock the Value of Customers' Ideas
Published by The National Consumer Council, 2006
Across a wide range of fields once passive consumers are becoming adaptors, inventors and innovators. They are not just consuming products and services, they are contributing to the way those products are developed and produced. In software, the biggest challenge to the propriety systems of big companies such as Sun Microsystems and Microsoft is coming from open source programmes developed by groups of volunteers. In a range of leisure fields the biggest innovations have come from groups of dedicated, knowledgeable users. In many public services, users are helping to develop and provide the services they rely upon. Journalists now find themselves surrounded by citizen-reporters who publish their material on blogs.
Yet knowledgeable, committed consumers who want to contribute to product and service development are being badly served by mainstream companies. It is not in business interests to ignore this source of knowledge, experience and ideas.
Innovation is a fraught and risky business. Producer-driven innovation has a success rate of about 25 percent. One uncertainty is over whether the technology in a new product will work properly. But by far the most significant risk is about markets and consumers: will they like a new product and want to accommodate it into their lives?
More consumer participation in innovation should be attractive to companies. By Involving consumers much more directly organisations should be able to reduce the risks of failure and make research and development (R & D) that much more effective.
Download it at: http://www.ncc.org.uk/publications/innovation_revolution.pdf
Civic Entrepreneurship
Demos
Public sector managers are under increasing pressure to deliver better services, matching the pace of improvement in the business world. But at the same time, public sector budgets are under strain. In this demanding environment, public sector managers need to be able to do more with the same resources. But despite government reforms of recent years, there are still significant barriers to improved performance. The public sector is often slow to learn the lessons of good practice and of service failures, and to take on new roles. It is too concerned with outputs rather than socially valuable outcomes. This book argues that these problems can be faced and overcome. The public sector has many people and organisations with the skills and attitude to become civic entrepreneurs, developing a vision of improved public services and harnessing new ideas and new partners to develop innovative solutions to local problems.
The authors analyse five remarkable case studies of how public services can be revitalised through this entrepreneurial approach to complex problems, leading to dramatically better outcomes for citizens and service providers alike. The case studies, which cover education, policing, health services and local government, build up a powerful and inspirational case for new policies to harness the energies of civic entrepreneurship throughout the public sector.
Charles Leadbeater and Sue Goss, 1998 Published by Demos, The Mezzanine, Elizabeth House, 39 York Road, London SE1 7NQ.
Download it at: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/socialentrepreneur
The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur
A growing band of social entrepreneurs, working at the grass roots of the welfare system in the space between the public and private sector, are developing innovative answers to many of Britain's most pressing social problems.
Social entrepreneurs are leading innovation in the most dynamic parts of the voluntary sector and on the edge of the public sector, often with the help of private sector partners. They frequently use business methods to find new solutions to problems such as homelessness, drug dependency and joblessness. They create innovative services by taking underutilised resources - particularly buildings and people - to address social needs left unmet by the public sector or the market. This report is based on case studies of five inspirational schemes which exemplify the potential of social entrepreneurs to create forms of active welfare which are both cheaper and more effective than the traditional services offered by the welfare state.
Charles Leadbeater, 1997 Published by Demos, The Mezzanine, Elizabeth House, 39 York Road, London SE1 7NQ.
http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/socialentrepreneur
Surfing the Long Wave - Knowledge Entrepreneurship in Britain
Demos
Every developed economy wants an enterprise culture. As the rate of economic change increases, entrepreneurship is seen as vital for future prosperity and competitiveness. But it also has a broader significance, acting as a vital stimulant for an open pluralistic culture and a driver of social and civic renewal. But despite the emergence of a knowledge-based economy, and a distinct shift in the qualities needed for companies to succeed, myths about entrepreneurship still persist. This report sets out to explode those myths, and offers a systematic account of the conditions and strategies needed to sustain entrepreneurship in the new economy. Crucially, the authors argue, entrepreneurship should be seen as a process, driven by teams of people and involving collaboration across organisations and between sectors like higher education, government and financial community. A sustained culture of knowledge entrepreneurship requires an infrastructure based on networks and clusters, which government can facilitate. The report sets out wide-ranging recommendations for a more systematic approach to entrepreneurship, including enterprise education in schools, new forms of finance, the linkage of entrepreneurial firms with management skills, and a radical reshaping of the Department of Trade and Industry.
Charles Leadbeater and Kate Oakley, 2001, Published by Demos, The Mezzanine, Elizabeth House, 39 York Road, London SE1 7NQ.
Download it at: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/surfing
The Independents - Britain's new cultural entrepreneurs
A new breed of Independents accounts for a growing share of the employment and output in some of the fastest growing sectors of the British economy: cultural industries such as design, fashion, multimedia and Internet services. These Independents are mainly in their twenties and thirties. They run microbusinesses or are self-employed freelancers. They are often producers, designers, retailers and promoters at the same time. Independents already account for 6 per cent of employment in large British cities and their numbers are rising. Their main assets are creativity, skill, ingenuity and imagination. Across Britain, thousands of young Independents are working from their bedrooms and garages, workshops and run-down offices, hoping that they will come up with the next Hotmail or Netscape, the next Lara Croft or Diddy Kong, the next Wallace and Gromit or Notting Hill. One of the main findings of this research - based on dozens of interviews with the new Independents in four British cities - is that there is a 'missing middle' in public policy. Policymakers, both national and local, know little about this new generation of entrepreneurs - how they work, where they come from, their distinctive needs - nor how to interact with them. This policy gap has to be closed - to help provide these new cultural entrepreneurs with a firmer base to build upon.
Charles Leadbeater and Kate Oakley, 1999, Published by Demos, The Mezzanine, Elizabeth House, 39 York Road, London SE1 7NQ.
Download it at: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/independents
Innovate from Within - An Open Letter to the new Cabinet Secretary
Sir Richard Wilson's retirement offers a golden opportunity to overhaul the civil service and accelerate the reinvention of public services. Existing controversy about the 'politicisation' of the civil service has masked the fact that this institution is struggling with the complexity of the demands it now faces. Senior politicians express growing concern about the capabilities of the civil service, but offer few solutions.
In this open letter to the new Cabinet Secretary, Charles Leadbeater argues that the Government's delivery mantra has resulted in over-centralisation. There is now a growing tension between the short term, incremental improvements of existing services and the creation of entirely new services for a more complex society. The solution is to encourage innovation from within.
As an alternative to a target-driven approach, Leadbeater sets out nine principles for reform. These are based on the need for 'licensed freedom' to innovate within a framework of transparency and high expectation. For a notoriously risk-averse institution such as the civil service, this means a fundamental change of culture and working practice. The diversity of people recruited as public servant also needs to be increased. This is the challenge facing the incoming head of the British civil service; for Government the challenge is overcoming its controlling instincts enough to allow it to happen.
Charles Leadbeater, 2002 Published by Demos, The Mezzanine, Elizabeth House, 39 York Road, London SE1 7NQ.
Download it at: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/innovate
