Innovate or die – a vision of the future
Calvin posted this on Dec 3rd 2007 at 12:47 under Business, Career Moves Column, Computing, Technology, Writing
"Working it" column published in the Career Moves section of The Evening Echo on 03/12/2007
You have to feel a bit sorry for the word “Innovate”. I mean, there it was, quietly minding it’s own business, sitting between innocuous and innuendo in the dictionary, when suddenly it was plucked from obscurity and elevated to a position of overnight celebrity.
Now it finds itself rolling glibly from the lips of silver-tongued politicians, plastered across the pages of the world’s media and evangelised by important individuals like guru’s and the people in think-tanks. Innovation is the Jade Goody of the lexicon – only with more substance. Not long ago you hardly ever heard anything about it, now all of a sudden you can’t escape it.
How do I know this? Well, apart from the fact that it’s blindingly obvious, and that stories about the knowledge economy have become a practically ubiquitous feature in the media, last week I had the privilege of hearing leading innovators speaking at a conference in Cork. The IT@Cork Technology in Business Conference is an annual affair, and this this year’s theme was “Connect and Innovate” (that word again). Hats off to the organising committee, they’d assembled an impressive array of talent to present at it.
First up was Hans Rosling, Professor of International Health with the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. What, you might ask, does a Professor of International Health have to say to a room full of Cork IT professionals? Quite a lot, as it turns out.
Professor Rosling is a natural presenter – dynamic, entertaining and humorous – but it was the innovative presentation of his statistics that really brought his talk to life. Frustrated with conventional ways of presenting global health statistics, Professor Rosling founded the Gapminder Institute to develop innovative ways to make statistics more accessible and interesting.
The result is extraordinary: an interactive, animated and colourful visual experience that makes statistics literally leap around on the page. It makes data… dare I say it… fun! You can see the graphs, and Professor Rosling, in action on www.gapminder.org.
Other international speakers included Neill Holoway, Vice President of Business Strategy with Microsoft International; David Hemler, former head of Microsoft Canada and now President of US retail giant Best Buy for Business; Jennifer Mowat, former head of Ebay UK and director of BT Online; Graham Whitehead, Futurologist with BT; and Anthony Williams, co-author of the innovative book “Wikinomics – How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything” – evangelists and innovators one and all.
There was also some home grown talent – notably Charles Garvey, CEO of dynamic Cork based e-commerce company NitroSell, who’s innovative management grew Horizon into one of Ireland’s most prestigious IT companies, and is rapidly driving NitroSell in the same direction.
The message was basically the same: innovate, or be left behind. Were on the cusp of an exciting new period in our history. Innovation is to the coming era what industrialisation has been to the last. Our future prosperity relies not on the physical staples of manufacture and production, but on harnessing, utilising and sharing the burgeoning potential of human knowledge. Innovation is the key to unlocking that potential – and it’s something we all need to embrace.
