One month after TCI: Sleepless nights and bouncing ideas!

“I have to sleep over it”, is a phrase we often use after getting overwhelmened by many new impressions, thoughts, or ideas. 4 weeks after the TCI Conference I slept more than once over it and still like to remember myself back. Some of the articles reflect my impressions from the Conference. If I would have to select one final overall statement then it would be the following:

“Critical success factors of a Conference with more than 350 experts on innovation are not mainly related to the topics that are selected but to the atmosphere and facilitation corridor that is provided for a fruitful and outcome oriented discussion between experienced participants!”

The real new insights during conferences are less so coming out from presentations themselves but from some ideas they are able to set free within the listeners mind. The exchange on these ideas and impressions can be promoted through a professional facilitation of communication. In that way this conference was much more interactive and fruitful than earlier ones I participated in. I discovered new forms of facilitation, interaction and exchange between practitioniers.

If I would have to select one of my main learnings during the conference then it would be the following:

“We will have to reflect more about how we can facilitate  communication and competition between business and institutional networks with the end to promote competitiveness. Cooperation in cluster promotion is just a means to  this end!”

The whole cluster and innovation system discussion is finally about cooperation and competition. On the one hand several TCI inputs and discussions provided interesting contributions on how to improve cooperation, how to get a deeper understanding about different mindsets, and about the importance to consider the change of mental models in our daily work. There is a need to understand better how we approach different human beings with different interests and backgrunds. What are more frutful ways to encourage a implementation-driven cooperation between businesses and relevant support institutions ?, is one of the key questions we will have to find more answers on.

On the other hand a deeper understanding of how to promote implementation- and demand-driven cooperation is just beginning. Cluster and innovation promotion it is not reached only through network facilitation, or only through understanding the critical human and institutional factors of cooperation. It is also about understanding and promoting competition!

The promotion of clusters and innovation systems have the objective to increase the competitiveness of a certain territory. And competitiveness is very much about understanding market failures, government failures as well as network failures that hinder competitiveness. It also involves a deeper understanding of the market forces, about the demand conditions and how existing and future businesses are challenged to react on these changing market circumstances in a more effective and successful way. Actually this topic of competitiveness and its element of competition  was rarely tackled during the TCI Conference. Nonetheless it is an essential one in times of globalisation.

A professional management of  such processes through practitioners, policy makers, consultants and businesses requires a competency in cluster facilitation that goes beyond network management but that is able to promote a reflection in businesses and support institutions of how to improve competitiveness along very concrete activities and learning loops.

Not only me but many practitioners and policy makers are coming every year to the TCI Conference to learn something new. Accordingly the title in Finland was “Learning Clusters”. Maybe one of the next TCI titles could be “lessons learnt for the future”, or “demand-driven clusters and networks: success and failure criteria”, or “Cluster facilitation vs cluster management: what do we need to change?” This would then encourage a reflection about market-, government and network failures we have experienced during the last decade as well as about our own role in cluster and business promotion. It would also force us to have a deeper look again into real practical examples that are closer to business reality.

I  like to remember myself back to the Conference in Finland because I did meet several very motivated and committed persons  with whom I would like to stay in contact. During the daily routine of our work the development of new ideas and the motvation to try things differently often gets insufficient attention. The TCI Conference is a place where this room is provided. Although  I had several nights to reflect about my impressions, there are still several ideas that are bouncing around in my head. And that´s gerat!

To the organizers and the TCI team: Thanks for the left bouncing ideas! It was a pleasure being there!

What makes a conference innovative? Let´s learn from Finland!

I myself have participated in 3 TCI Conferences.  Is this enough experience to say that this 12th one in Finland was the most innovative one? 3 are not 12, that´s true.  And it is also true that every conference might have had its special highlights. Then let´s phrase it differently: This conference was one of the most interactive and innovative one!

What makes a conference innovative? Before jumping directly to the answer let´s lean back and imagine the following: You are entering a large hall with many strange machines standing around, and a lot of noise. On a desk next to you many thumbnail sketches and drawings are lying around, in a laboratory at the room´s corner  there is steam bubbling out of pots and test tubes. What the hell is going on here?, you might ask yourself. Then you see a small person with red hair coming out of the other corner of the room. He comes closer to you, shakes you the hand and says: Welcome in my inventory hall . I am Gyro Gearloose, the best inventor of the world!

How would you react if he shows you his newest inventions, like one that makes chairs walking around, a table cleaning itself, a machine that can massage your head, or small robots who look like aliens but are very helpful? You might be excited, or you might think: for what does the world need this?

What has this to do with an  innovative conference or with large group facilitation approaches? A lot. In most conferences on innovation you are not finding new inventions in the program design, a lack of innovative interaction, facilitation formats and of the use of social media. You seldom get surprised in this sense. What we in general still experience in many of these events is a very frontal style of communication. The principles of this static approach are the following:

• one is talking, the others are listening
• one is the master who teaches the others, the others are the the ones who are there to learn
• the presentation style is normally power point with many content, less visualisation and lack of use of different interactive media
• the discussion time after the presentation is normally short and exchange of experiences often gets less attention

This structure of events is good if participants want to get mainly input of information. Nonetheless this input can also be given via a video show or through searching the internet for cluster expert speeches on on youtube. The main advantage of a conference like e.g. the TCI is the opportunity to exchange with experts, who are working in their daily live on cluster development issues, and who have collected so much experiences. The question is how to bring the participants together in the way where the share their experiences and expertise in the most effective way?

The TCI Conferences always used the format of workshops as one method for interaction. Nonetheless the workshops again were often, not always,  again based on Power point presentations from different experts.

So what was new in this TCI Conference?  For me it was obvious from the first moment I entered the TCI hall and saw the program and in which design some  ”Gyro type” seemed to have been involved. It entailed new methods, story telling elements, and interaction. I then visited the cluster lounge that provided a nice atmospehere for conversation, a newsletter on the table that did not only looked nice, but also had interesting headlines and was even nicely written. When I then entered the plenum hall the chairs were not standing in line. Instead the whole hall was set up like a cafe, with many small tables standing around and decorated with nice smiling pumpkins.

there were other screenplay elements that enriched the whole design of the event:

• the use of new media tools (like chat and recordings during the plenum sessions),
• the  Learning Journey,
• the Cluster Clinic,
• facilitated working groups through a team of facilitators,
• the TCI and Cluster Café,
• evening tours like the “walk on the moon”
• and the whole scene arrangement at the Kalevala night (including boat trip, arrival at the harbour with welcome drinks, candle- and fire design as well as traditional story telling).

Similar to the visit in Gory´s hall, what have you thought while being confronted by these new TCI Conference inventions? For some it was fascinating, for others strange or even totally crazy, some liked some elements and others not, some would like to go back to the traditional and comfortable style, others would like to continue these explorative elements. Finally it is all about innovation, about implementing something new, about inventing a new process, challenging the participants and taking the risk (and the opportunity!) of getting critisized and/or celebrated.

What was different in this Conference? It entailed

• the emphasis on interaction (e.g. TCI Cafe),
• different entrance points  for different characters (learning journey, workshops, academic summits, presentations)
• a new style of facilitation through a group of facilitators in most of the working groups
• a funny and professional style of moderation by Erkki Toivanen
• presenters like Madeline Smith, Patrick Dixon, and Pekka Himanen who brought new elements of thinking into the Conference
• elements mentioned above like the scene, the setting, the golden thread of the Conference.

Some of the participants felt overwhelmed by the self-organizing expectations the organization team expected. Useful would have been

• a more profound explanation about the different new methods and instruments
• a bit more “faci-pulation” in the sense of guidance and strure provision during the faciliation process of the working groups
• an introduction into the “screen-play of the week”
• as well as a short introduction about the interrelation between the term “innovation” and the new style of the Conference design

New inventions and innovations of products or processes cannot and do not have to be perfect on the first spot. Gory Gearloose and the TCI organisational team knew that and took the risk. What we as participants have to learn is that invention and innovation is about doing things differently and about doing different things. And it is about having the courage to try out these new paths.

There is much to learn from the innovative style of the Conference in Finland. Going back to the traditional frontal and power-point-packed design would be a discreditation of the innovative learnings that were made. This Conference will hopefully be seen only as a starting point for the further use of innovative tools and methods with the objective to create an even more interactive and learning oriented environment. There are additional elements that could be integrated e.g. like open space technologies, more effective workshop structures, and additional facilitation methods.

he TCI conference needs to become a place where experts from around the world do not only talk about innovation and innovation systems but also use their meetings as a playing and learning field on new formats of change facilitation and interaction. Let us support this process, so that Dubai will not be a step back to tradition, but a way forward to more innovative exploration.

TCI Learning in the last half decade: Exchange of impressions with Dr. Göran Lindquist

This TCI Conference is the 12th one and has created a lot of networks and friendships.  In additon 12 years of exchange on experiences also have contributed to many learning processes.  But how can they be summarized? In an interview with Dr. Göran Lindquist we reflected about the learnings of the last 6 years.  Lindquist is co-author of the famous Cluster Initiative Green Book and other TCI publications  (see reference below).  The whole podcast interview can also be downloaded or listened here.

“What have we learned since 2003?”, was the first question I discussed with Lindquist. uiring the the exchange of thoughts several learnings came up:

• in 2003 still everybody wanted to understand what a cluster initiative “is” or “is not”. Today everybody knows it and the cluster approach is widely accepted
• many practitioners wanted to find “a one size fits all solution” instead of being open for diversity and different cluster approaches. Today the cluster discussion benefits from these diverse experiences
• the cluster discussion has moved from the question of how a cluster initiative should be promoted, towards new topics like value chains, and in the last two  years from there to innovation and innovation systems and more technology-push approaches
• Evaluation and impact monitoring has become an important topic because the many initiatives that have been promoted since the 1990s have been pressured to demonstrate results after several years of support

For Göran Lindquist the discussion has moved from a simplistic black-white perspective towards a more relaxed, profound and diverse one. “In 2003 we still discussed for example if a strong government involvement in cluster initiatives is either good or bad.  During the last years we have learned that government involvement is not the relevant success criteria. Much more important is the quality of involvement“, said Lindquist.

What are the main challenges for the future discussion? was the final question of the interview. For Lindquist there are two main challenges:

• First, we need to understand more about evaluating our work on cluster promotion. For him it is clear that evaluating the soft aspects of cluster initiatives will stay to be difficlut also in the longer run. But it is good that many initiatives are now trying to develop different evaluation methods which will contribute also to different insights on this topic
• Second, a challenge is still the question of how to involve not only small but also  large companies in the initiatives. How is it possible to strengthen these localized aspects of business linkages between these companies?, is a question that still has to get more attention

There is a third challeng I myself have emphasized: the discussion needs again to become more focused on the question what businesses learn from the initiatives and how to promote and facilitate such a learning in the most proper way.

Dr. Lindquist, thank you for the interesting reflection!

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P.S.: Further information on Initiative Books:

Some of the TCI learnings were published by the TCI network in several Cluster books who still can be seen as groundbreaking publications on international experiences of cluster initiatives. The TCI Conference became the place where the books were presented:  It was like that in 2003 in Gothenburg, where the Cluster Initiative Green Book was presented to the public. It provided an overview about  cluster initiatives world wide and was the first attempt to provide an overview about different formats of cluster initiatives. A follow-up book on cluster initiatives in developing and transition countries – the “Bluebook” – was launched in 2006 in Lyon. In 2008 on the TCI Conference in South Africa the Red Book was presented focusing on challenges on evaluation and key succes criteria in initiatives.

Especially the Green book became one of the groundbreaking publications for cluster managers and policy makers who started to become interested on the promotion of cluster initiatives.