Rendez

Invited speakers were invited to present at the 4th Symposium of the 21st-Century Center of Excellence Program at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. David Ing led with a presentation on "Service Science, Management and Engineering: Overview and Perspective", on behalf of IBM Americas Group.

Marja Toivonen spoke on the "Collaboration of Industry, Academia and Government for Promoting Services Research in Finland".

Jim Kijima described a "New Service Innovation Educational Program at Tokyo Tech".

Hiroshi Deguchi outlined "Service Sciences, Management and Engineering: Its Research Domain and My Research Map".

These formal proceedings marked the launch of a new educational program for master's engineering students at Tokyo Tech.

The Rendez project was invited to participate in an invited workshop on Service Science, Management and Engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.  As an meeting of international experts, we had attendees from Finland, Japan ...

... the UK, United States and Canada.

Marja Toivonen led off with a presentation on research in Finland.

After hearing Marja's presentation, Yuriko Sawatani showed her some of the research she's been doing in Japan.

Participants had an opportunity to exchange ideas.

To give us a different perspective on innovation, David Hawk arranged for us to meet Eric Hoffman at the University of Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging. This is one of the leading research labs of its type in the world, with close relationships with industry. On the tour of the medical center, we saw an MRI machine that will soon be replaced by a newer model.

In working hand-on with the equipment, the engineers and technicians have devised some tools with improved flexibility.

Taking advantage of the proximity of the Rendez research team in the New York area, we scheduled a briefing at the Industry Solutions Lab at IBM Research in Hawthorne, NY. With weather slowing down some of the travellers to the meeting, we started with a tour of the demonstration floor.

Information technologies and multimedia technologies are converging, as in these demonstrations on video surveillance.

One of the advisors to the Rendez project, David Hawk, hosted the Rendez team for a research meeting at the School of Management of the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Minna sketched out a summary on two whiteboards. On the left was Views to Implementation.

On the right whiteboard were ideas on Exploration, Implementation and Dissemination.

Winter weather was discouraging in New Jersey. The opportunity to freely discuss research ideas was helpful in advancing and verifying our ideas on innovation.

As follow-through from introductions made in Tokyo, three professors from the Tokyo Institute of Technology visited Finland.

At Nokia House, researchers collaborated on a Rendez workshop on Management Development for Service Business Innovation, exchanging and jointly developing knowledge.  Kyoichi Jim Kijima spoke about the Service Innovation Educational Program to be launched in the spring at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Hiroshi Deguchi described some of the prior research on Agent-Based Social Systems.

In August 2007, after the ISSS meeting at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, the Rendez team convened a generative conversation on innovation.  A digest of the talk is available.  Each of the researchers shared experiences and perspectives on innovation.

Kazuyoshi Hidaka from the IBM Tokyo Research Lab discussed services science, management and engineering (SSME).

Yoshi Horiuchi discussed generative conversations.  Fumio Kodama reviewed the background on demand articulation.  Gary Metcalf spoke about management development.

If you're curious about alternative views on management education for our changing world, you can surf over to a blog entry by Irving Wladawsky-Berger, where he describes an MIT course this fall on Technology-Based Business Transformation.

Irving WB retired from IBM earlier this year, and has had a full career with the company.

At the MIT Sloan Management Review, there will free access to the Business Insight Series for about another month.
This is a promotion co-sponsored by IBM and the Wall Street Journal, providing open access for a limited period of time. MIT Sloan Management Review is normally accessible only by subscription.
There's two ideas that readers might consider:

• Firstly, about content: there's some interesting articles on innovation that are worth reading, if not citing.
• Secondly, about business model: what does it mean to a publication that normally relies on a subscription model to get a sponsorship from third parties. Is this a case where intellectual capital is exploited positively, rather than just withering away behind locked doors?

Enjoy!

Between April 26 and 28, the "Innovation in Services" Conference was hosted at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. Academics were invited from around the world to attend this event sponsored by Tekes.

Henry Chesbrough hosted the event.

David Teece gave the lead-off presentation on "Managing Dynamic Capabilities and Expert Talent in Today's Global Economy".

Jim Spohrer closed the first day with a talk on "Steps Toward a Science of Service Systems".

The second day burrowed more deeply into academic work, presenting and discussing papers contributed to the conference.

David Ing attended the meeting, and has posted digests of the presentations on the web. Digital audio (MP3) recordings of the talks are available from him, on request.

On March 13, 2007, presentations on ongoing research leading to dissertations were presented.

Minna Takala is in the later stages of completing her dissertation. She spoke on "Innovation - expanding definitions, measures and measurement".

David Ing is in the early stages of preparing his dissertation. He spoke on "Emergent Innovation across open source communities, companies, and business ecosystems".

Digital audio (MP3) recordings of the talks are available on request from David Ing.

The schedule for 2007 is now maintained offline, and will be posted periodically.

The program schedule for fall 2007 was updated on 2007/09/20.

The reading list was updated on 2007/09/20.

On January 11, executive sponsors of the Rendez project were invited to attend a workshop at the Linna Hotel.

Introduction by Taina Tukiainen, Stadia

The meeting opened with a presentation by Taina Tukianen outlining the background and directions for the Rendez project.

Taina emphasized the importance of industry-academia co-operation and she warmly welcomed company people and international guests
to the workshop.

"Leading an Organization Where Innovation Matters" by Marianne Kosits

Marianne Kosits, an executive consultant with IBM from New Jersey, U.S.A., covered two major topics. Firstly, from an employee's point of view, she described how IBM communicates that innovation matters. Then, with her experience as a leader in IBM's Relationship Alignment practice, she reviewed how "sustainable innovation" was established in an interorganizational context.

"Leading Innovation" by Gary S. Metcalf

Gary Metcalf, president of Interconnections LLC from Kentucky, U.S.A. spoke about innovation from a systemic perspective, and potential ways to overcome barriers to innovation.

"3D Virtual Worlds for Business" by Minna Takala

Minna Takala, from Nokia Corporation, described how advances in technology such as virtual worlds provide paths for innovation. She presented examples from virtual ideas into innovations (Tucker car, IWATSW band, and Second Life virtual on-line game) to stimulate discussion in parallel sessions.

After these presentations, the group divided up into two parallel sessions to discuss the content at greater depth. The meeting closed with the group rejoined to discuss key ideas generated during the workshop.

Presentations from the meeting are attached below.

From the January 25, 2007 issue of the International Herald Tribune ....

The world's biggest source of employment is for the first time the services sector, rather than agriculture and industry, a UN report said Thursday.

Some 40 percent of global workers are employed in the services sector, compared with 38.7 percent in agriculture and 21.3 in industry, the United Nations' International Labor Organization said in its annual report. Ten years ago, 43.1 percent of employees worked in agriculture, and 35.5 percent in services.

There may be a jump in developing countries directly from agricultural to services (without industrial as an intermediate step.

The trend toward work shifting from agriculture to services was particularly pronounced in Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, the report said.

Read the full article at the International Herald Tribune.

Timo Hämäläinen, research director at Sitra, gave a talk in yesterday's class that may have been the best presentation that I've heard in Finland. It probably was the best presentation that I've heard in a year.

Clearly, he has depth on the subject of social innovation, based on his 2003 book on National Competitiveness and Economic Growth. I was impressed by his reading of Karl Marx on technological determinism, because the mention of Karl Marx tends to turn off North American audiences. (Timo said that Marx's ideas on communism didn't work out, but the ideas on technological determinism have proved to be useful and durable.)

In addition to describing a detailed framework towards a social innovation policy for Finland, he outlined a review of Europe in the Golden Age, a recently published book by Anthony Giddens. Unfortunately, Timo said that his review was written only in Finnish. (I'd like to see it in English).

The slides are attached below, but it was a lot easier to learn from Timo's talk. (It's too bad that I didn't bring a recorder!)