The rest of Innovation Edge was….OK. Great turnout, great venue, but caught between a few stools I think: neither a trade fair of new innovations, nor a genuinely interactive forum, nor a traditional conference (keynotes + seminars). Networking was good, though not enough time for it….and the expert seminars (at least the ones I attended / heard about) were average at best: meandering was the word.

Gordon Brown gave an engaging, concise, warm speech (without notes…with jokes), but the highlight for me was definitely Bob Geldof. [you can hear audio etc of lots of the speakers here]

It sounded very much like he’d been reading John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan’s book,The Power of Unreasonable People, as he used the same George Bernard Shaw quote (unreasonable people shape the world around them… etc) to frame his address. Without notes, he was passionate, coherent, fluent, intelligent and engaging: really impressive. A few excerpts that stood out for me (make of these what you will):

– "Desperation is the father of necessity, just as necessity is the mother of invention"
– [on Britain being more risk averse]: "We so fear failure that nobody dares try anymore….we need to celebrate the attempt at trying"
– "in a world of hyper-democracy, the notion of leadership comes to the self….decisions will increasingly be made locally"
– "co-operation and interdependence must be the way"
– "we need our social entrepreneurs to consider [ideas of a different world], to be innovative and progressive"

He then ended with a quotation from W H Murray, which he said should be written on the chests of social entrepreneurs, politicians and changemakers in the world; certainly a powerful call to arms, to the doers of the world:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and
creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills
countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely
commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events
issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of
unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man
could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for
one of Goethe’s couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!

Am at Innovation Edge, NESTA’s big innovation event / conference at the Royal Festival Hall. Sitting in on the plenary session, so will blog a few highlights as we go. Highlights to come? Bob Geldof, Tim Berners-Lee, Gordon Brown and lots of other interesting people. Chair and chief exec of NESTA to kick us off with some opening thoughts…..

[NESTA chair] Chris Powell: key themes are that this is a growing movement, + a broader view of innovation than before…importance in global context re. problems / challenges / UK:world…

– innovation as iterative and incremental process…
– need to embed innovation / make change systemic
– relationship to government (procurement, DIUS, DCMS etc) / demand

(slightly boring this: basically stating why NESTA is needed…..)

[film interlude about innovation…which I think is meant to be funnier than it is….a few sniggers in the audience]

———————————————

Jonathan Kestenbaum: (detailing progress since last event 18 months ago…seed funding, public service innovation, new tech funding, source of authority and expertise….); key point is that they have built dozens of partnerships, which have been crucial.

– NESTA has learned 3 things:

    – NESTA at best when taking risks; + importance of risk-takers
    – extraordinary power of partnerships and collaborations (innovation coming from creative combinations)
    – huge national appetite for innovative solutions + "not an elite activity"

[now going to film about NESTA’s work / stories; quite the production budget they have… ;0) lots of people saying nice things: Geoff Mulgan, David King, Richard Lambert etc…but also some neat case studies]

Final bit emphasises ‘misson-driven’ nature of NESTA, + praises staff etc. Quotes Robert Kennedy on the future belonging to those with "passion, reason and courage"…

[another film! with Andrew Marr, no less; from his modern history of Britain programme, I think] ———————————————————————————————————————————-

Now Jonathan Freedland interviewing Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Live by videolink from Bristol…unfortunately slightly out of sync.

T B-L: my boss "didn’t exactly say yes, but didn’t say no either"; importance of long leash + generalising specific solutions they have found…."give people space…don’t micromanage";

"if you tell them what you want, you’re giving them the old ideas…not enabling them to come up with new ones"

[quotes Einstein?]: "if we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research"…..importance of not restricting with outcomes + measuring return on investment….

"I hope that the internet will be ‘responsible’ as it grows" alongside experimenting with "new forms of society, science, democracy etc"

[question about incivility online]: blogs, wikis etc are ‘social machines’ and are new, so people are finding their way with these new tools of interaction; views these as "growing pains"….

[question about current project: Web Science] thinking of the web as "humanity connected" rather than connections between computers / web pages….; need for ‘cognitive science’ of the web: "we have a duty to understand the web"

[question about web being fragile] As much about "will it be a force for good?"…in the realm of scientific / drug information…etc

[question about innovation : collaboration] hopes innovation will be "collective, rather than individual"; ‘common language’ gets built up between groups and teams; web can make these collaborative spaces "transparent"; need for collaboration across disciplines to solve the big problems. "That’s why I made the web" (good sentence to be able to be say!)

And break!