Exploring Innovation: St. Louis Fed 2009 conference

I would like to take Mr. Hargadon's comments a step further: Innovation is about creating collaboration. To achieve success, all the components must connect with one another. Specifically, all the stakeholers must communicate with each other for effective community growth and sustainability. This includes governmental policy makers,enforcement/regulatory agencies, education (public and private), non-profit investment, business, philanthropy, advocates and community leaders. All must connect with each other. My organization, the Community Law Center, in Baltimore, leads a successful,working model in the area of enforcement of real estate regulations; connecting the regulated with the regulators, as well as the various regulators with each other. Also participating in round table discussions are grantmakers,elected officials and community leadership. This model can work on broader community development, growth and sustainsability.

Dear Robert: Your comment about "creating collaboration" is very interesting and thought-provoking, and the description of how your group connects "the regulated with the regulators, as well as various regulators with each other" is fascinating! It's kind of surprising (perhaps) that various regulators don't necessarily talk to each other or coordinate that well. Why is that the case, and are there other ways, in addition to the Community Law Center's model, to improve the situation with uncoordinated regulating agencies in whatever field?

The fact that the various regulators do not necessarily talk to each other is an unfortunate reality. I believe this happens for a multitude of reasons, including the overlapping and conflicting jurisdiction of agencies. Look, for example, at federal regulation of the financial "industry". Government is vast and the tasks are often compartmentalized with each agency pursuing its own mandate (or agenda). Then there is the question of what agency has jurisdiction over a matter and preemption. The regulated will point to federal law to avoid compliance with tougher state regulation. I have even seen, in the area of fair housing and predatory lending,a challenge to local law because it was preempted by state law. Other factors include bureaucracy and capacity. Even before the regulatory agencies faced the danger of budget cuts, there was a shortage of investigators. It seems that this may be a catch-22, because, unless the government sees a need or problem,it is reluctant to ramp up efforts to enforce or regulate; unfortunately, lax regulation invites and enables both intentional and unintentional noncompliance. Better communication would allow for increased capacity. Because governmental agencies don't communicate well, an issue is often not identified as a potential problem until its consequences are unavoidable. Again, look at the process of regulating the financial world. As to "why", there is a tendency to finger point,rather than assume responsibility. Look at the Katrina debacle. "Why" is important, but not merely to cast blame. "Why" is important, because it enables us to recognize and admit shortcomings and where to focus attention for improvement, hence, innovation. Innovation requires a willingness to look at the big picture together, as one community, be it municipal, state, federal agencies coming together,or by connecting the issues: housing, for example, can not be resolved without focusing on education, transportation, employment and commercial growth. Until there is this collaboration, actions taken will continue to be chaotic and haphazard.

Connecting is truly important but without the passion to have the innovation make a real difference in the lives of others and the the comensurate courage to try even if failure is possible - that's when the magic occurs! One needs to understand all the facets of connecting and how to execute the connections in an effective manner. Then it takes the passion and courage to deliver.

Thanks for identifying a essential ingredients for innovation that turns ideas into value to expand economic opportunity for people: passion and courage.

This has become quite an interesting thread, and it feeds into a post I've been working on: reflecting upon "leadership" and the role of the individual in innovation. I'm hopeful I can get that up in the next couple of days. Here are a few of the questions I'm considering:

Is collaboration a key precondition for all innovation or just for some innovation? Are social and/or policy innovations a kind of "special case," or is this true for all innovation? Is it possible that collaboration is *not* a precondition, but rather a catalyst or accelerator?

If we say that collaboration is important in innovation, where does that leave the role of the individual, of passion, fire-in-the-belly, or leadership? In creating "Innovators-in-Residence," rather than "Innovations-in-Residence" we're clearly signaling something: that the innovation champion, the leader, is important. Why do we believe that?

I think it's possible to say that innovation is built on "collaboration" in the sense that there are few (perhaps no) truely new ideas in the world - our knowledge as a species is built upon both accretion and insight. This is one end of the spectrum.

But I also think it credible to argue that no one truly "does it alone." There is ample biographical evidence that as innovations are developed and advanced, part of the role of the champion/leader is to get others invested in the innovation, and the degree of needed human investment increases as innovations go to scale. Are there some examples of innovations that were truly "solo" in origin?

What do you think?

This is an interesting thread, and I have to say that the work Mr Strupp is doing via the CLC is something I would like to learn more about. Indeed, this site and the "Innovators-in-Residence" project would seem to have an interesting future based on its roots and raw ideas.

Law itself is so collaborative, and in its best use, it creates an environment within which innovation may flourish. It is also, some may argue because of its collaborative nature, prone to stifling innovation at times.

Humanity has struggled with the question of preeminence regarding the relationship between the individual and society's masses for a long time. I for one believe that it is crucial to recognize that we are an organism of individual beings. None of us exists alone, but all of us can not overpower any one of us unjustly if we are to experience the creative freedoms we are talking about here.

Innovation needs leadership. Individuals bring so much hard fought perspective and life experience to the beginning process of innovation... the incubation and formation stage. Collaboration is how we bring ideas to life, create progress from the raw materials of belief, passion and ingenuity. Take either piece of the formula away, reduce the importance that either piece plays and you damage the inherent formula.

To the degree that we empower individuals with creative power, we empower groups to form collaborative headwinds. Managing these powers is the great challenge of the day. Our world needs for its constituent parts to be empowered rightly so that they may collaborate to solve the truly complex problems our advancing societies are up against. We need to provide those powers inside of a framework that ensures longterm security and stability while maintaining our need to learn by failing. Risk and stability must exist in the same system at the same time.

The only way we do that, and we must, because the last eight years have shown a preponderance of ways we may not, is by making individuals powerful... very powerful... inside of a framework that makes our society secure now and into the long future.

I too find this discussion fascinating and appreciate the opportunity to participate.
All innovation requires some degree of outside influence, i.e.,a mentor perhaps. However, do composers, inventors, painters and similar artists "collaborate" in the sense we are talking, or are their innovations individual works?
Perhaps there is a distinction between solo-innovation and social innovation;social,by definition, would require the engagement of multiple people/entities. Collaboration does not diminish the need for passion of individuals, in deed,it is an individual's passion that enables the collaboration. Whether it be my Baltimore example,the passage of groundbreaking legislation, a "buy-in" to global warming, hybrid automobiles, or a host of other "new" ideas, there needs to be a passionate initiator willing to challenge us to do something different. But,to be successful,there must be collaboration.

Lets make this discussion practical for a moment; I have been looking at each of the sites represented by the contributors here, including Mr Krehmeyer's Beyond Housing site, Mr Strupp's Community Law Center, Mr Torrens obvious affiliation with CFED, and my own efforts with NoizIvy.org.

So my question is this: When a convergence of related interests occurs in which a potentially innovative outcome is possible... does the social grouping create the dynamic that leads to the innovation, or simply enable an individual to innovate using the resources at his/her disposal?

It is my position that the individual always remains the most critical part, and that into him/her, we as a society must decide whether to invest our attention (time), efforts (energy), resources (creative skills & tools). But without the individual, no collaboration ever begins because no innovative leadership is capable of emerging from the morphing middle of the mob. Innovation comes from the edges... as that is where individuals go to escape the group field. It is ironic really, an individual ends up needing that which he/she works so hard to create "outside of".

Thoughts?

Picasso is thought to have said "good artists copy, great artists steal". Of course, this not condoning plagiarism, but acknowledging that origniation is rooted in what already exists. Certainly, we need the passionate, committed leader willing to identify issues and energize the group,but,in the end, the successful innovation is not the idea, rather it is the implementation.

Great point. Ideas are a dime a dozen, implementations are hard fought struggles. So everything that can exist already does, and although "we" must wait for individuals to identify the opportunity to innovate, that is, identify the manner of approach to innovation that may yield results, ultimately "we" are the creators of value in the world.

This is a deep rabbit hole.

Did we steal from nature when we witnessed a lightning bolt start a fire and thought, hmm... could we make fire? Or did one innovative mind find in nature a possibility to innovate a man-made outcome resembling the chemical reality around him?

In another twist, did Thomas Edison create the light bulb by becoming part of a group of innovators? Or did Thomas Edison extend the power of his own mind by bringing other collaborative minds under his minds direction. Was the invention of the light bulb an example of group think or the capacity of the individual to extend his own creative powers by utilizing available resources?

Seems that we have a mirror perspective here, and depending on which side you exist on, you will see what you are looking at. The question ultimately becomes, if we were truly a group-think, group-act mechanism, rather than an individual-thought, lead-follow mechanism... would innovation be hampered or elevated?

The supposition is that to the degree we collaborate successfully, in extent and nature, the better we innovate. I think that is true in regard to the notion of extent, but our perspective falters when the nature of innovation fails to spotlight the powers of the individual mind.

We must challenge ourselves to consider whether the majority of our actions are self-led or based on following the constructs that self-led minds have established for us to follow. Collaboration may appear to be innovative because the leader of our minds is separated from us by time, but chasing good ideas until we manifest them is not the same process for the group as it was for the individual. That distinction defines what innovation is I believe.