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The research presented in this volume, developed in the EC-funded Project ISCOM (Information Society as a Complex System), takes off from two fundamental premises: -- to guide innovation policies, taking account of the social, economic and geographic dimensions of innovation processes are at least as critical as the science and technology; and -- complex systems science is essential for understanding these dimensions. Online version (possibly available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-1-4020-9662-4 -- Table of contents -- 18 Chapters Front Matter I-IX Part 1 Introduction David Lane, Robert Maxfield, Dwight Read and Sander van der Leeuw 1-7 Part I From Biology to Society Front Matter 9-9 From Population to Organization Thinking David Lane, Robert Maxfield, Dwight Read and Sander van der Leeuw 11-42 The Innovation Innovation Dwight Read, David Lane and Sander van der Leeuw 43-84 The Long-Term Evolution of Social Organization Sander van der Leeuw, David Lane and Dwight Read 85-116 Biological Metaphors in Economics: Natural Selection and Competition Andrea Ginzburg 117-152 Innovation in the Context of Networks, Hierarchies, and Cohesion Douglas R. White 153-194 Part II Innovation and Urban Systems Front Matter 195-195 The Organization of Urban Systems Anne Bretagnolle, Denise Pumain and Cline Vacchiani-Marcuzzo 197-220 The Self Similarity of Human Social Organization and Dynamics in Cities Luis M.A. Bettencourt, Jose Lobo and Geoffrey B. West 221-236 Innovation Cycles and Urban Dynamics Denise Pumain, Fabien Paulus and Cline Vacchiani-Marcuzzo 237-260 Part III Innovation and Market Systems Front Matter 261-261 Building a New Market System: Effective Action, Redirection and Generative Relationships David Lane and Robert Maxfield 263-288 Incorporating a New Technology into Agent-Artifact Space: The Case of Control Syst

Building on the success of the original INNOV8 in the academic community, INNOV8 v.2 will be available at no cost to businesses and academic institutions for simulations and training. The new version features puzzles and tasks that challenge players to tackle real-world challenges. INNOV8 v.2 delivers a complete redesign of the game, with a new global collaboration feature for players to work with virtual teammates to progress to the next level of the game. In addition, three new game scenarios reflect a new level of intelligence required for future, high-value job opportunities: * 'Green' Supply Chain: Players evaluate a traditional supply chain model and are tasked with reducing a fictional company's carbon footprint. * Efficient Traffic Flow: Players evaluate existing traffic patterns and re-route traffic based on sensors that alert the player to disruptions such as accidents and roadway congestion. * Call Center Customer Service: Using a call center environment, players develop more efficient ways to respond to customers. [....] Most MBA programs are already heavily based on projects that reflect how individuals and teams need to interact in the real world. INNOV8 v.2 takes that a step further by actually allowing students to step into a dynamic business environment. Based on advanced commercial gaming technologies, it allows players to visualize how technology and related business strategies affect an organization's performance. Together, players can map out business processes, identify bottlenecks and explore 'what if' scenarios in an experiential learning environment. [....] INNOV8 v.2 will be available in May 2009. For more information on INNOV8, IBM's Academic Initiative or to access the virtual press kit, pleas visit www.ibm.com/innov8.

daviding says: The main page is at http://www-01.ibm.com/software/solutions/soa/innov8/index.html . I haven't played the game -- I'm not a fan of video games -- so if you want to try 5 to 10 minutes online, I'd be interested in your experience.

The Royal Society has recently published the findings of a major study on the role of science in services sector innovation. Entitled Hidden Wealth: the contribution of science to service sector innovation , the report highlights the wider significance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to the services sector, which makes up around three quarters of the UK economy. Hidden Wealth concludes that STEM is deeply embedded within the UK service sectors and has an extensive impact on service innovation processes, which is often hidden. Although STEM is important in services sector innovation now, it is also likely to play an important part in the future of services, as many services are on the cusp of a transition to more personalised and interconnected systems, which will require significant advances in STEM.

This report from the Royal Society was cited by Irving Wladawsky-Berger at http://blog.irvingwb.com/blog/2009/08/hidden-wealth-science-technology-and-services-innovation-in-the-21st-century.html .

Excerpt: 6.6.6 A systems-based approach to understanding services. One solution may lie in the wider adoption of systems-based approaches to understanding services. A more systematic approach to studying services should result in better design, management and understanding of services and, at the same time, provide a suitable context in which to integrate disciplines such as social sciences, management science, economics and STEM. These sorts of educational programmes may particularly benefit firms who do not require graduates with deep knowledge in one of the existing disciplines. [p. 61] However, we note that when this has been attempted in the past, as with systems science and complexity theory -- both of which have existed for several decades and have been widely applied in scientific, engineering and social science contexts -- the tendency has been for people to organise themselves into disciplinary silos, with the result that the desired new interdisciplinary approaches have struggled to impose themselves. [pp. 61-62] The emerging Service Science, Manufacturing and Engineering (SSME) or 'Service Science' concept is also intended to join up a broad range of disciplines, but is specifically concerned with ensuring that graduates are better equipped for the workplace. Service Science may ultimately help the development of multi-disciplinary capabilities but in this regard SSME programmes seem to have been slow to emerge and only partially successful to date. A more profitable approach to redesigning academic curricula and delivery (at least as far as services are concerned) may be to focus in on service design, which seeks to understand the delivery of services from a user perspective and to develop better solutions (see Box 4.3 on page 40). Developments such as the Masters course in Service Design, Management and Innovation offered by the University of Manchester Centre for Service Research might provide good models for new courses, and should be closely mon

... mainstream economic theory does not help addressing innovation policies suited to the knowledge economy as it assumes away the complexities of innovation processes. This dissertation deals with the above-mentioned topic from the viewpoint of the Lisbon goal of competitiveness in the knowledge economy. First, the author asks why the creative sector could play an important role in the knowledge economy, how this relates to the Lisbon Agenda, and whether the arguments available to date are sound. The relevant literature suggests mainly that the creative sector has a strong nexus with the economy nowadays, and that it has entered the post-Fordist cycle, i.e. human creativity, knowledge and innovation are at the basis of its competitiveness. [....] In future, the creative sector is expected to further grow in European countries, and this is related to the opportunities offered by the conjunction of the so-named "big three" - digitization, convergence and globalization. Public institutions' adaptation and response to the "big three" to foster creative firms' adaptation would unleash high growth for the creative sector. In addition, its growth could feed the ICT sector who calls for cultural content, inter alia. This may favour the ICT sector uptake, which is the key sector in the Lisbon Strategy. The author finds the main concern is about the precision of current statistics. Indeed, the present census for the creative sector only allows for indicative figures. Thus, further and sounder evidence is required. Even so, it can be concluded that the creative sector can play an important role within the knowledge-economy in Europe but this is much about prospects and it depends on the adaptation to the "big three" as fostered by the state itself. The corresponding role of the state in formulating policies to boost the creative sector is explored by analyzing a case study, i.e. the Creative Economy Programme in the UK. This has developed a whole approach

daviding says: I've only read the abstract, but my guess is that "creative sector" would somehow link to Richard Florida's "creative class". There's an interesting pointer to the "Lisbon strategy", with which I'm not familiar, and the "big three" of digitalization, convergence and globalization (of whom I'm not sure named as "the big three"

The original pointer to this report summary is from Jim Spohrer at http://forums.thesrii.org/srii/blog/article?blog.id=main_blog&message.id=191#M191 .

Key messages * There are three primary stakeholder groups that can guide the development of services science: academia, government and industry. Only by investing and working together in a coordinated manner can the maximum promise of services science be realised. * The global recession should sharpen government and industry's focus on services science as they seek solutions to invigorate the western economy, to make business more competitive and to learn from this latest setback. * Services science has the potential to establish a new industry of professionals (compare engineers, lawyers and computer scientists) whose expertise can be drawn upon to benefit the broader services-led economy. * The degree of human intervention required during the lifetime of an IT services contract is too high and is consequently both too expensive to be efficient and too error-prone to be effective. These shortcomings are directly related to the absence of scientific rigour in the design and delivery of these services. * IT is integral to services science, since modern service systems often have IT enablement heavily involved in service delivery. * IT service providers have the potential to benefit from services science by making their offerings more meaningful and resilient in a market that will increasingly demand more efficient service delivery. * Innovation in services delivery is at the heart of the vision for services science. The end goal should be a virtuous circle of innovation that can encourage new business opportunities and, in turn, create further innovation in the delivery of services. * Collaboration, investment and sharing of knowledge are vital to progressing services science research and development. * Significant challenges still need to be overcome to drive adoption of services science, not least of which is the complexity of aligning academic, business and governmental interests at a given moment in time. * Gove

Inspired by complexity theory and open source thinking, the Constellation Model provides a framework to help organizations collaborate. The organizing model emphasizes the role of small, self-selecting action teams that operate interdependently, supported by a Stewardship Group. Leadership rotates fluidly among partners, where each partner has the freedom to lead a constellation that matches its profile and skills. The result is a shift from strained partnerships to open and effective collaborations. This organizing model is a true social innovation. Initially created and refined with the Canadian Partnership for Children's Health and Environment, the Constellation Model has been replicated and adapted to support the work of a dozen groups. Join Tonya Surman, creator of the model, as she explains how the model works and takes on your collaboration challenge! This is an ideal workshop for groups that are exploring what kind of a collaboration might work for their project or for learners exploring new models of organizing. Suggested readings: http://www.lcsi.smu.edu.sg/downloads/MarkSurmanFinalAug-2.pdf http://www.osbr.ca/ojs/index.php/osbr/article/view/698/666

daviding says: I received a Facebook invitation for this upcoming talk by Tonya Surman, director of the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto. There's links to the same article (in two forms) at the bottom of the page. The foundations cite Ralph Stacey via Brenda Zimmerman. There's a video profile of Tonya Surman from TV Ontario at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfA8-vOZV9s .

Many services can be self-provided. An individual user or a user firm can, for example, choose to do its own accounting - choose to self-provide that service - instead of hiring an accounting firm to provide it. Since users can 'serve themselves' in many cases, it is also possible for users to innovate with respect to the services they self-provide. In this paper, we explore the histories of 47 functionally novel and important commercial and retail banking services. We find that, in 85% of these cases, users self-provided the service before any bank offered it. Our empirical findings differ significantly from prevalent producer-centered views of service development. We speculate that the patterns we have observed in the banking industry will be found to be quite general. If so, this will be an important matter: perhaps 75% of GDP in advanced economies today is derived from services. We discuss the implications of our findings for research and practice in service development.

daviding says: Includes the idea of self-service, focusing on banking services.

Print ISBN: 9780470382417 Online ISBN: 9780470569627 DOI: 10.1002/9780470569627 Industrial Engineering What you need to know to engineer the global service economy. As customers and service providers create new value through globally interconnected service enterprises, service engineers are finding new opportunities to innovate, design, and manage the service operations and processes of the new service-based economy. Introduction to Service Engineering provides the tools and information a service engineer needs to fulfill this critical new role. The book introduces engineers as well as students to the fundamentals of the theory and practice of service engineering, covering the characteristics of service enterprises, service design and operations, customer service and service quality, web-based services, and innovations in service systems.

daviding says: There's a philosophical shift to move from information held in private within government departments to free-flowing content.

Web 2.0 technologies are now being deployed in government settings. For example, public agencies have used blogs to communicate information on public hearings, wikis and RSS feeds to coordinate work, and wikis to internally share expertise, and intelligence information. The potential for Web 2.0 tools create a public sector paradox. On the one hand, they have the potential to create real transformative opportunities related to key public sector issues of transparency, accountability, communication and collaboration, and to promote deeper levels of civic engagement. On the other hand, information flow within government, across government agencies and between government and the public is often highly restricted through regulations, specific reporting structures and therefore usually delayed through the filter of the bureaucratic constraints. What the emergent application and popularity of Web 2.0 tools show is that there is an apparent need within government to create, distribute and collect information outside the given hierarchical information flow. Clearly, these most recent Internet technologies are creating dramatic changes in the way people at a peer-to-peer production level communicate and collaborate over the Internet. And these have potentially transformative implications for the way public sector organizations do work and communicate with each other and with citizens. But they also create potential difficulties and challenges that have their roots in the institutional contexts these technologies are or will be deployed within. In other words, it is not the technology that hinders us from transformation and innovation - it is the organizational and institutional hurdles that need to be overcome. This paper provides an overview of the transformative organizational, technological and informational challenges ahead.

daviding says: I was thinking about (output) coproduction and (value) cocreation, and came across these proceedings, which includes a short article by Rafael Ramirez and Ulf Mannervick on "Designing value-creating systems".

Essay Archive Edited by Lucy Kimbell and Victor P. Seidel, collected in this innovative and highly illustrated volume are findings from the designing for services project. Particular focus is on the practices of an emerging discipline of service design grounded in the arts and humanities. Three case studies in which service design companies worked with science and technology-based enterprises are discussed, from a range of academic perspectives.

SERVICE SCIENCE: RESEARCH AND INNOVATIONS IN THE SERVICE ECONOMY 2011, DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4419-8270-4

SERVICE SCIENCE: RESEARCH AND INNOVATIONS IN THE SERVICE ECONOMY 2010, DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4419-1628-0

SERVICE SCIENCE: RESEARCH AND INNOVATIONS IN THE SERVICE ECONOMY 2011, DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4419-7904-9

The basic idea: A method to select the appropriate management actions in a complex adaptive system based on the degree of certainty and level of agreement on the issue in question.

daviding says: I came to this 2001 page by Brenda Zimmerman, interpreting Ralph Stacey's work, via the presentation on the Constellation Model by Tonya Surman (at the Centre for Social Innovation, Toronto).