Today I’ll present a timely example and, I hope, an inspiring glimpse of how European policy-making actually works. It goes like this: On 4 July, economics professor Mariana Mazzucato spoke in Helsinki about the mission-oriented approach to research and innovation that the Union should adopt. Questions will come readily to your mind: Why now? Why there? Why she? And of course: So what? Let’s go through.
How to have more insights
08 Jun 2019 by Leave a Comment
The cognitive psychologist Gary Klein proposed the triple path model to explain how we have insights. Furthermore, Klein systematically searched for hindrances and encouragements to having insight. It should be interesting to compare his findings with Steven Johnson’s analysis of the conditions that make good ideas flourish. Good ideas need insights, and conditions for the success of one should promote the other. Let’s find out.
Exploring the adjacent possible – What we should expect from technology
04 Apr 2019 by 1 Comment
As innovators, we build our future progress on our predecessors’ past achievements thanks to humankind’s unique capability of social learning, of sharing experiences and ideas. Today, we rely heavily on computers, databases, and the internet to facilitate and accelerate whatever we do. And that includes our social learning capabilities and our creative skills. Hence it’s high time to critically assess technology’s impact and to formulate our expectations: How do we employ technology to support our innovative endeavours? What do we demand? And what can we realistically hope for?
Exploring the adjacent possible – How we make progress
28 Feb 2019 by 1 Comment
We have everything today that we need to shape tomorrow. All the ingredients for our future are available to us in the here and now. That is the very essence of progress: the future flows from the past, we shape it on the foundation of the past. We “only” need to find out how we can best combine the available ingredients to get the next task done. That’s what we call progress. And we can make progress in different ways …
Exploring the adjacent possible – The origin of good ideas
03 Jan 2019 by 1 Comment
Innovation deepens our knowledge and understanding of the world, it extends our reach and access to resources. More importantly, innovation expands the realm of what we can do with all our knowledge and resources: deliver new goods and products, bring forward new types of organisations and services, and in more general terms develop new ideas […]
