about the project
The Future of Innovation is a little bit like a ‘wikipedia’ for the next frontier of innovation. It is a must-have for everyone in the field of innovation, a snapshot of different view points, one of the most exciting innovation initiatives, the most wonderful journey, and even an innovation in itself. The Future of Innovation, book and website, has something in store for each of you:
- For the academics amongst you we hope that the book will provide you with some insights into where you might like to focus future research;
- For those of you in industry we hope that the book and website provide you with starting points for your innovation agenda, and introduce you to new models, frameworks and ways of thinking around innovation;
- For the consultants among you we believe that here you can find the seeds for exciting new fields in which to create new areas of expertise;
- For those of you from the public sector this website and the book can alert you to leading edge advancements and thinking that you may want to take into consideration for the development of policies, infrastructure and support.
On our journey to a new understanding of innovation and its management we started with over 350 contributors from nearly 60 countries. Around 200 of the contributions can be found in the book, published by Gower in the Autumn of 2009 (in the northern hemisphere), knitted together by our thoughts and comments. Here you can find an amazing range of insights, dreams, visions, concerns, hopes, and passion from the global innovation community. What will you do with it, and how will you join the journey?
So, how did all this come about?
Anna: “I was writing a Conference Report on ‘ISPIM 2008’ for the Russian journal INNOVATIONS. As part of it, I decided to interview two of that year’s keynote speakers, John Bessant and Bettina von Stamm. Without any hidden agenda and inspired by the title for ISPIM 2009, The Future of Innovation, I addressed one question to both of them: “What are your thoughts on the Future of Innovation?” To my great surprise, John and Bettina described it rather differently…all of a sudden…It seemed intriguing, curious, fascinating and delightful to explore what leading thinkers from business, government, consulting, and academia might consider the Future of Innovation to be..”
Bettina: “I was delighted to be contacted by Anna whom I had met at the ISPIM conference, and who had asked me to share my thoughts on the future of innovation. We had a great meeting and when I thought we had discussed all we had set out to talk about Anna introduced the idea of a book on the future of innovation. (Will you be surprised to hear that it was in a cafe? Best place for cooking up great ideas.) Having unknowingly been one of the triggers of the amazing venture I was immediately taken by the idea of inviting people from around the world to share their thoughts on the subject. Hence it took little convincing, and a decision to pursue this joint project was made on the spot.”
So the seed was planted at the ISPIM conference in June 2008, showing its first shoots at our meeting in September, and began vigorous growth when we starting inviting contributions mid November. Now you see before you the beautifully grown, richly flowering results.
The official launch of the website will take place at ‘The Future of Innovation’, the 20th conference of ISPIM, the International Society for Professional Innovation Management, 21-24 June, 2009, Vienna, Austria, For more information visit http://conference.ispim.org/
We are happy to inform you that the launch of the Future of Innovation book and thefutureofinnovation.org is included into the EYIC Events Calendar.
