Today we face an entirely new environment
for innovation and getting things done.
The days of the lone genius quietly toiling
away in pursuit of that 'Eureka' moment
to revolutionise an industry are all but
over. We are now in the days of asking and
listening to our customers and working
with them in our innovation cycles.
Innovation demands collaboration. So does
production. In the past we could focus on
a single task in an assembly-line fashion,
handing our completed activity to the next
person who would in turn do the same,
until the job was finished. Now the jobs
change fast, requiring learning new skills
rather than merely repeating the old. We
have to seek out people who have other
pieces of the puzzle and work with them
to tackle increasingly complex issues at a
much faster pace.
Although we'll be writing a lot here about the potential of social media to help people tell their stories, share ideas, start and continue conversations, it is seldom enough on its own. In fact, it is still very much a minority medium in the field of local community action - however powerful it can be, as shown by the work of hyperlocal bloggers (examples here, and we'll be mapping more).