Our current creative capacity is fixed in mediocrity (y), with few extremes in the differentiation of ideas (x). This is what we know as the 'creative' (!) industries. The Unknown (z) lies outside these horizons. It is what we don't yet know or know we need to know. 

Some good ideas on open innovation from BBC business correspondent Peter Day at the Manchester: Knowledge Capital- Inspiring Innovation Seminar.

"The monetisation of innovation is a barrier. The only reward we need is recognition." To do this, "we need stories that celebrate our successes. And that doesn't mean more Alan Sugars! All ideas should be traceable back to their originator." I agree- creativity is as important to us as water. It should be free of any barriers and that includes the false reward of financial gain. Creativity should be a social action driven by documentations of success.

Peter Day suggested that in his experience "adversity (i.e. not working within the safety of a structure) helped innovation. And that everyone is in some way innovative." This belief lead to him to define innovation as "the friction generated by the real world rubbing up against the creative brain of the individual." He proposed "the key to innovation was emergence." He refers to the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. "Rigid systems reveal opportunities."

The real purpose of the talk was to discuss his experience of The Honey Bee Network. A movement founded by Professor Anil Gupta in Ahmedabad, India. The clever analogy around which the organisation is formed is that the Honey Bee, "collects its pollen from the flowers, but benefits rather than impoverishes them." It is "grass roots entrepreneurship; ideas produced by village entrepreneurs. Tapping into the ingenuity of people without the education or connections to spread their ideas or profit from them very much." Professor Gupta found ways of "capturing inventions, writing them up for a worldwide Internet audience; getting the most ingenious ones manufactured so that the inventor can benefit financially from the idea which previously might have only helped friends and relatives." The organisation now has over 10,000 success stories. It truly is, as Peter Day concluded, "one of the most remarkable organisations on earth" and, "an idea which other ideas could congregate about."

"In the 20 years to come there will be more innovation and disruption than in the last 100 years"

The purpose of NESTA is to develop some sort of strategy or structure for innovation. It is recognised that innovation comes from "the edge" and not the core. However, by giving it structure it becomes closed. Contradictory to their research. It's not a case of doing or saying the wrong things. It's a problem of positioning. Innovation is a practice that needs only a neutral platform to work from; not policies. Ideas are natural actions; the result of factors we can't conceive. I don't believe innovation can be calculated or controlled by structure. Open innovation is in danger of becoming ordinary. NESTA needs to provide the platform that lets the unexpected happen...Unknown is a tool to listen to the ideas of the moment- take them out of peoples heads- and help them fit together. It is a rapid innovation model; removing barriers and encouraging failure.

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