DID YOU GET YOUR SAY AT SENATOR CARR’S INNOVATION REVIEW?
By James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine
In the cover story of Anthill’s launch Edition, way back in 2003, we posed the question, “Who’s carrying Australian Innovation.”
Five year’s later, we have a new Government, a new Minister (for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) and a newly launched series of stakeholder consultations to kick-start a Federal ‘Review of Australia’s National Innovation System.’
This is obviously a good thing. The Federal Government is taking innovation seriously.
But there’s also something ironic about an ‘innovation’ review (launched to “promote a culture supportive of new knowledge and fresh ideas”) that relies on a progressively outdated method for gathering feedback. The public forum is a crowded, generally awkward and genuinely artificial meeting of largely self-interested people.
I wondered the same thing when the Prime Minister gathered his 1,000 brightest minds in Canberra last month. If the lack of gender balance wasn’t already a concern, the added cost to Northern and Western Australians also highlighted a financial inequality.
So, of course, you can understand my consternation at why the Review of National Innovation Stakeholder Consultations chose the antiquated ‘public forum’ as its preferred method for gathering feedback (alongside the more exclusive, invite-only ‘think tank’), particularly in the progressive arena of science, technology and R&D.
Frustration #1: Public Forums are Opportunistic
Attending a public forum is a headache. It’s a boring, time-consuming distraction from running a business. As such, it seems to attract only those who have the most to gain from getting their own generally self-serving agendas across. If you want to observe where 90% of innovation funding ends-up, you now know where to go (perhaps with cap in hand). It means that only the most saintly of altruists will ever make their presence known, which rules out most members of industry and the private sector.
Frustration #2: The Same Ideas are Pitched Ad Nauseum
Wearing my editor’s cap, I get a swag of innovation proposals across my desk, generally seeking our support through coverage, promotion or endorsement. The surprising thing is that few of these innovation proposals are genuinely innovative. In fact, I have had the same idea pitched to me by two separate organisations in the same week, after seeing the same concept fail two years prior. While this shouldn’t exclude a good idea that was poorly implemented or simply the subject of bad luck from getting a second chance, the lack of communication and the degree of duplication does frustrate me (as I’m sure it equally frustrates forum organisers).
Frustration #3: They Favour the Establishment
Forums can be costly to attend, particularly if you are not a city dweller, and ‘think tanks’ favour established players, often with too much time on their hands. In short, the same people are generally invited year after year and, of course, they share the same opinions year after year. Further, an entire generation of business people (two generations, in fact - Gen X and Gen Y), half the workforce, prefer consultative, collaborative and downright more efficient ways to share information and discuss trends. They use this little thing called the ‘Internet’ (ohhh… it’s great, you should check it out).
So, here’s my offer to the new Rudd Government, the new Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, and the new National Review (to be conducted by another “expert panel”)…
Over 10,000 Australians will read this blog. Over 50,000 Australians will read the next edition of Anthill Magazine. That doesn’t make us big in the grander scheme of things but it certainly puts us at an advantage in the innovation space.
We have the technology. We have the readership. We have the will. Come exploit our altruistic nature and desire to create a truly democratic innovation system in Australia.
Call me… Call me now (said with breathy excitement caused by Australia’s genuinely explosive but often untapped innovation potential).
In short, we have a ’soapbox’, so why not use it? (note my oh-so clever use of metaphor - ’soapbox’: archaic, obsolete physical object used for public speaking).
And here’s my offer to new and old Anthillians…
If you weren’t able to attend the Public Forums and would like to contribute, please go crazy with any comments you’d like to leave below. We’d be honoured to submit your thoughts to the PTBs (powers-that-be) responsible for the National Review (whether or not our offer is accepted).
Tags: australia, business, government, Innovation
March 18th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Totally agree with Frustrations 1, 2 and 3. I went to one public forum and was one of the very few representing early stage start-ups - we’re all too busy trying to innovate in a global market! The focus was CRCs which have been found sadly lacking in their ability to commercialise IP (versus funding input - poor national ROI). Institutional innovation in this country occurs in a vaccum. Very little high quality global market research is used to provide over-arching strategies for innovation from a national perspective. The innovation ‘establishment’ (Universities, CSIRO and CRCs) get far too much funding and government leverage and the SMEs which are really commercialising technologies for global markets (which won’t survive if they are not!) get far too little - huge market failure in this country at the early-stage which government should try to better address with innovative tax and other policies. I’m all for Anthill providing a 21st century forum for input on innovation. We need to lobby hard to get ahead of the strength of the lobbies from the innovation ‘establishment’. Keep up the good work. I will be making a submission.
March 18th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I am a little puzzled as to why it is that Australia ranks 17th on the OECD table of innovative countries.
2.1 percent of Australia’s GDP is spent on innovation, well below the OECD average.
Is innovation just a buzz word tacked onto government policy and hip marketing campaigns? People, not process, drive real innovation.
If Canberra was really serious about innovation it would focus on developing skills and experience in the private sector. Where innovators and entrepreneurs work and business opportunity is incubated.
Let’s get serious about developing our skills and commercialising our talent. Our ideas can become resources through open forums, easy access to knowledge and shared experience, www.groundfloorcollaboration.com does just that. Providing a platform for you to develop your talent and take that talent to market.
Phase 1 is about connecting talented individuals to each other and to business.
Phase 2 aims to develop a place where you can exchange ideas, knowledge and experience.
Phase 3 will move towards greater collaboration.
Phases 4 5 6 and 7 are up to you. What do you need?
You are creative. You are Australia’s greatest economic resource. It’s time to translate the many valuable conversations that happen every day into meaningful outcomes. Let’s stop waiting for others to shape our future, we are the lucky ones. We can make it look however we want it to.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
We at GRS are using leading edge development of software and looking at things in a global way. So far we are talking to government people with much less limited vision. Hope to get to the 2020, but concerned that things might be a bit shallow.
Might I suggest that the Federal Government have paid think tanks for a longer period on some of the topics discussed.
They could also run with the Australian Model for Industry Clusters as we have suggested as it is a forum with more time. But the question remains “Who in Government has the vision to evelauate the good ideas?”
Tony Robinson
18th March 2008
March 18th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Nowhere in any innovation policy is there anything about asking consumers what innovations might improve their lives. Worldwide, scientists and companies are having good ideas, developing products and services from them, then trying to shove these products and services at consumers using marketing. Marketing is often driven by the results of focus groups, but nobody is really asking the populace what they would like.
Involving leading users in improving stuff is starting to get some currency, but surely we can do better than that. Web 2.0 provides the tools to get out there & ask people at large or particular interest groups what’s the next life enhancing product or service they want, or how do they want business, government and the non-profit sector to improve their systems and services. You could even ask people “What’s wrong with us?” as a spur to innovation.
March 18th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Hello all.
Those points are very valid. The challenge with the politians in that context is that there’s no “rewards points” in the deal for them if you work on collaborative issues. Lots of innovation involves big $$ and people don’t let you have big dollars without strings (as well).
Off tipic for a second. I remmeber a $70k arts grant the government gave to sponsor local arts (and/or innovation).Most of the strings meant that a functional organistation with a long-term history in the field had to ‘improve’ its processes — The bulk of the funding went on doing “process stuff” that didn’t serve the organisation, and gee(??) they lost a lot of the incumbent talent because the group no longer suited the innovators!
A second thing is that most of the ‘big’ innovations I’ve seen have come from special projects or skunk works. Probably for the same reason as my little story above. In the entrepeneurial mode — Entrepeneurs are like “special project”-s in that they want something to become real. Most of the time,I think the entrepeneur’s role is to engineer ways for non-entrepeneurs to believe it will be worthwhile. (May be I should explain my use of “special project”, as something that simply-must-happen. Landing on the moon. Defeating the enemy. Save the climate.)
Finally, in my experience, the ticket price on innovative projects is nothing like the true cost. One is a way to stitch-up a deal, or make a tender “fit”. The costs and estimatesare often ignored except by the poor contractors, project managers, etc. The ones that make it across the line then are those exercises that can survive ‘corner cutting’ and don’t rely on a wholistic model (unlike marketing, climate change, and getting into outer space — Where only wholistic responses are effective).
Thanks her to Tony abover. ‘Good ideas’ … need a wholistic evaluation and qualitative approach. You’ve seen what happens when a “good idea” takes hold in government. Australia has one of the world’s largest computerised people-monitoring systems. Largest like #3 or so world-wide. It is used to gaol 90 year old ladies for centrelink fraud. I’m sure it is worth the money. Now if that’s the unemployment system, what would the WorkChoices system have looked like?!!
I belive good idea are (usually) “small” ideas with modest footprints, and BIG results.Or at least multiplier results, bigger than just double or treble the inputs, and “hidden costs”.
Great discussion to have — I hope everyone contributes.
… Will.
March 18th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I think the fundamental problem is that government & industry are too focused on technical innovation & patents, which are always & normally easily exceeded by the competition once released.
When the commercial ready program gives millions to widgets & Boost Juice (a design, brand & distribution led company) has to phone friends & family to get off the ground you know you’ve got a problem.
Coke et al buy a brand like Glaceau Water for 4.1 Billion US$, when it only has revenue of 360 Million US$, not because of the widget inside, but because of the brand, distribution, design & synergy potential (& the people perhaps). Whilst companies value unique design, brand & distribution systems the government is a little preoccupied with widgets.
Too change the game, we need a fundamental shift in thinking. We need to support design led companies, with unique brand ideas that can be put through unique distribution approaches. Widgets are good, but are just support & should be thought off in that way. If the Apple is ugly you don’t eat it, or buy it in the case of Steve Job’s Apples.
March 18th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
PLEASE ALL READ!!
Here are, according to Senator Kim Carr, the supposed peers who will judge and determine the future of Australian Invention/Innovation. Mostly academics… on review don’t see a single actually qualified for such an important, vital position. NOT A single Patent Attorney, Industrial Designer, Innovation Financier, Austrade, Innovic (or any other State body actually involved with innovation/invention)… worse, not a single inventor? Basically not a one who deal at the ‘coal face’. It’s beyond appalling.
http://www.innovation.gov.au/innovationreview/Pages/home.aspx
PLEASE email and express your outrage at such a sad attempt at reviewing Australian Invention/Innovation given the current curious board membership. Last chance to make a difference!!!
innovationreview@innovation.gov.au
Any inventor/innovator should be outraged at the lack of ‘coal face’ expertise. Successful, so I now have a voice… should just get on and enjoy I guess. But Aus. and all the nonsense concerns. Will fight from OS… is so important this Government stops ‘pandering’ and actually finds a solution.
So damn simple if they just listened and utilised the best involved in Australian Innovation/Invention. PLEASE get as angry as I am (okay, no real need to be so agitated here anymore, done. Off overseas shortly to enjoy). Cannot contend with the impediments to invention/innovation in Australia, so WILL fight on in the hope others benefit.
PLEASE CONTACT THE OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER: The Hon. Kevin Rudd.
PLEASE CONTACT THE OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER: The Hon. Julia Guillard.
It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for all inventers/innovators (yes, there is a distinction). Please, please write and annoy… last chance for years so don’t get lazy.
Peter Marks
skramp@bigpond.net.au
Cudos to James and ANTHILL
March 18th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
The New Inventors called my invention ingenious. One Judge suggested I contat the Qld Govt which I did. Bunnings offered to put the product on their special orders catalogue. I applied for Smart Water and Comet funding but to no avail. I spoke to Innovic who put me onto a organisation who wanted money from me to take it further. Money I didn’t have. I am now in a position now where I will probably have to drop the lot ’cause I cannot afford to impoverish my family further. In my experience then the bureaucrats make verry poor judges of what is/isn’t a good idea. Another good invention lost, and more potential industry that will never produce or export.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
It is clear that the editor has thought this through and already captured the key element in the frustrations. The question is how to make any difference in this key area. The main issue that I think are
1) The government has different goals and objectives to the industry and academia.
These possibly should all be different but at least on the “same page” That is the end game should be the growth and wellbeing of the nation “which is us”
2) The ideologies for the country do not seem too be aligned with reality. The concept of free market works if all other also have a free market. The mixture of for profit and not for profit causes the motivation of the teams to be confused. The end game should be wealth creating and reward for effort. People should be paid what they earn and earn what they are paid.
3) The main gaol of innovation in my view is to mobilise and empower the nation to prosper and for all to enjoy the short life we are given here on earth
March 18th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I can gather more intriguing, provokational, strategic awarenesses and future trend data from surfing the net, and by reading the many, many, global and diverse focus social network sites, multiple news stories and other’s ideas on how to float a concept or get a bit of information on how to engender a culture of innovation than I could gain in a year’s worth of innovation forums. (Whew. What a long sentence.) Forums favour the loud, individuated and well planned. A culture of innovation is, IMO, by it’s nature organic and collaborative - taking strategic focus from situational and time-driven opportunities. Small, innovative incubators not linked to financial outcomes may be useful (e.g., not a university model, or a course provider or funder) but a collaborative co-op.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
At my local innovations review it seemed to me that the small business/micro business innovators have a lot to say in this review but as usual with these things, they are busy at work and don’t have time to come to a forum or make a submission.
The federal government has in the past focused on the big end of town, and one thing to come out of comments from the floor was that at the small and micro level, the message about government programs and how they can help is non-existent.
This goes both ways: business miss out on vital support and government fails to understand, hence capitalise on, the small business sector. This flows on to opportunities for young people, Australia’s competitiveness and ‘brain drain’
We know that the small/micro innovation sector is the backbone to Australia’s innovation reputation yet there are still many hurdles - venture capital and cheap prototyping at the top of the list.
At our session we talked about the lack of a strong vision for Australia and the lack of imagination and leadership when it comes to innovation (particularly in the last decade).
So at the top we lack vision and at the bottom the message is muffled. There’s an incredible opporutnity here for our innovation system to be tuned to the right frequencies.
March 24th, 2008 at 10:35 am
James,
If the “leaders” of innovation in this country aren’t making much sense, why not take the lead ourselves & make them irrelevant, by proposing a model by which innovation can gain stronger momentum in Australia? We can make them our puppets?
No doubt all your readers have their own frustrations & ideas on how to make it better, but unless someone (suggest Anthill) takes up the challenge for us I’m not sure much will change. Peter Marks makes a good point that it is poor that there is no one on the inovation review coming from the coal face, but a lot of people who work for & read Anthill do come from the coal face, so why not just facilitate them taking over the ideas to make it work?
Sort of what you were suggesting in your soapbox idea, but rather than just ranting, lets get some ideas organised to overhaul, then get some articles out there on how to do it & make the current situation look poorly side by side so that what we need to change becomes obvious? Maybe done before, if so sorry, haven’t been a reader for long…
Item 1 would probably be a poroposal for a list of people (from the industry or coal face) who should be on the innovation review.
Cheers
March 24th, 2008 at 10:49 am
BTW.
The French have so many good tennis players coming through at the moment because apparently they have a country organisation plus some multibillionaire doing the same thing as the courtry organisation on his own (& apparently he’s leading the way). Strong competition to the country system is making everyone lift their game & producing better players.
Maybe you haven’t made enough out of Anthill yet to start doing that sort of thing quite yet but perhaps that’s what the innovation system needs? Two systems with appropriate KPI’s with one administered by a private group & the other administered by the current group of people?
We sort of have that in Private Equity, Angels etc…but there are no visible KPI’s on success or failure…
March 24th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Like most of the comments made here, I agree that there is great value in the innovative opportunities of Australian business people. Opportunities that are, generally, poorly served by the incumbent government schemes. Schemes that all too often require young, or small companies with very limited resources to have money to get money. Does that really make sense to anyone?
That said, I feel the need for some balance in this debate. Consider for a moment what a government can do, who formulates government policy/programmes and who delivers. Politicians rarely have substantial business experience and almost never genuine entrepreneurial/innovation experience. They do however, usually, have a strong commitment to public service, to trying to make a difference. Likewise, career bureaucrats typically have a deep seated desire to make government benefit the country. Both politicians and public servants are hampered by the need for them to be seen to be acting in the public good and with even, open, transparent processes - we the citizenry and taxpayers demand such, at least in Australia we do.
The best way government can help directly is to use appropriate expertise, efficient low cost processes and deliver direct funding without matching requirements - to invest in innovation. However, as a community we don’t like governments taking apparently big risks with our taxpayer dollars and the politicians know that is one sure way not to get re-elected.
It is pretty much an accepted truism that governments are not good at “picking winners” and that that role is best left to the market. However, government can provide support for areas of endeavour and that is easiest for them to do through institutional means, such as support for academic research. Under the Howard government funding for universities was decimated and those institutions were forced to become “commercial”. This has led to higher costs for students to gain an education but, more relevant to this discussion, it led to an unbalanced emphasis on academics justifying their research with commercial outcomes.
Like the above comments about the lack of “coal face” expertise in the panel and committees, this commercial emphasis for inherently non-commercial endeavours ensures that neither goal is well met. There are rare examples of great success in university commercialisation efforts but, very much the exception.
I applaud the Rudd Government’s decision to have the Carr Review and admire the community’s passion for wider consultation. So, I’d like to hear from you how a web-based process that will likely receive millions of inputs can be adequately filtered and reviewed to extract a meaningful consensus of the population’s opinions so that it can be used to formulate new policy and programmes that will really deliver and do all that within a reasonable time frame - say six months.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
“Unless we are willing to think, we shall have to work.
And the less we think the more we shall work, and the less we shall get for that work.”
- Charles Haanel, The Master Key System, 1916 …only 85-years old!
There are 2 pieces to this puzzle: the vision or raison d’etre…why do we need to innovate? and the implementation. My take on the vision is as follows:
Globally, industry is dividing into 2 broad camps. One camp is based on commodities, mining and agricultural products for example, where there is intense competition. The only way to distinguish between buying rice from Australia or from Indonesia is primarily on price – so there are continuous downward cost pressures – including on salaries and wages. Increasingly, you have to be a large and very efficient organisation to compete. Currently, 60% of Australia’s exports fall into this space.
In the other camp are industries based on intellectual property - things we dream up – ideas that are converted into something unique that people want to buy - things like films, business software, electronic games, bio-technology products, health systems, education systems and content and others. The more unique they are, the less price-sensitive they are and the more they can earn us ……. as individuals, as a state and for our nation. So, by encouraging our industries to embed unique intellectual property into their goods and services, their ability to compete is enhanced - in line with their degree of uniqueness.
As a consequence, we also create a strong demand for highly-skilled workers, so we also want to target our competencies towards these areas – and that means that our education system has to be tilted towards achieving outcomes where our graduates end up with valuable intellectual property – that is, they have knowledge that is saleable; they are able to apply that knowledge and they know how to maintain and extend that knowledge.
We also need the full participation of all the diverse elements of our population -because diversity is one of the driving forces behind creativity - we can’t afford to write-off 30% or more of our people through poor schooling, poverty, employment bias or lack of access to information - because we throw away a major asset – brainpower - which has an uncanny knack for being blind to socio-economic status!
All this leads in to implementation:-
1. Change is needed in our education systems to achieve the following:
- people themselves need to be able to find the most current and correct information to use in their work on an as-required basis - increasingly, that means being able to search the web and other electronic information sources, and evaluate their worth
- our whole population needs to be IT literate and web-enabled, and to be willing to participate in a continuous learning loop
- we need to remove silicon ceilings based on gender, age, race and other such irrelevant criteria and use the talents of our population, wherever (or in whomever) they reside
- our education and training systems need to keep up – to be able to deliver world-class content via world-class learning systems
2. Change is needed in the way we support innovators and entrepenuers:
- Remove 90% of people in all Federal and State industry development departments - it is a perfect time to do this as they will readily find jobs in the private sector. Keep the people that have project management skills and can interact and support & copnnect private industry (I like the cluster models) and use the savings to provide a range of tax and other incentives that will allow those people to try and fail or to try and succeed.
3. Promote the hell out of the successes and learn, learn, learn from the failures.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
This is a rare opportunity to have your ideas presented directly to a panel that will inform the highest levels of government policy makers.
If you want to have your say, drop everything and go to http://AussieInnovation.com right now; register and add your thoughts, whether they be the outline of an idea or a full submission.
The community will take it from there. Use the inventors, innovators, entrepreneurs or big picture people out there looking at the same problem from different angles. Let your ideas carry them, and them help carry your idea. Listen for the parts that strike a note, say your piece or listen to what people need to wholeheartedly get on your bandwagon.
Build a better proposal, build networks that open new opportunities, but, most importantly, build support. One voice can be lost in the shuffle of paper, enough voices can rattle glass … or change a country.
If you are an Australian innovator then we know you have a submission for us for three excellent reasons: 1) you have pushed the limits of the current innovation system, 2) you are an ideas person and 3) at any time you could point to about a dozen ways that the system be better. Depending on the size and scope of your plans, you may even have had to look abroad to get your project moving and, if that is the case, then we really need you to help us solve that problem.
All you have to do is open our submission template and start by writing down just one of those ideas, frustrations or plans — you never know where it might take us all.
You will have to sign up to submit but it’s painless and we won’t share your information with anyone: http://aussieinnovation.com/user/register
We look forward to reading your views!
June 18th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
[…] Forums and Submissions attract opportunism of the worst kind. Who else wants to spend hours in a town hall? Or weeks devising a submission except people with something to gain? This is something that I’ve climbed on my old soapbox about before (“Did you get your say at Senator Carr’s Innovation Review?”). […]
June 25th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
These people in charge of making decisons about innovations in Australia could not bend a paper clip into a shape of a circle. Vote this bloody government out next election and never return to them. Vote for the New Economy party - where ever they may be.
Kevin Rudd is a know all know nothing that will not listen - too proud to admit a mistake - what was the 2020 summit about without coalface innovators Mr Rudd,? Kate Blanchett is a good actor like trhe rest of Labor - say heaps - act and do nothing of any substance than last 2 hours!
Go to hell Rudd!