Innova block IIC

Credentials matter. With the right credentials, you can get access to money, talent and organizational resources that can bring ideas to life. But what are the credentials for an innovator? Certainly, there are the traditional credentials of entrepreneurial success, publications and degrees. But many people who have perspectives and insights that can create positive change–especially people who might be innovating day in and day out in a corporation or other large organization—may lack some of these and may need to establish their reputations before they can make a real impact.

Now, innovators need to innovate on a regular basis, it even before someone puts gold stars on their foreheads. The habits of an innovator need to be well developed before opportunities are seized. But, being an effective innovator is not the same as being a recognized innovator. And being a recognized innovator creates larger, more promising opportunities.

There are many ways to create a portfolio that will get attention. Here are a few ideas:

1 Get attached to an innovative project. This has the dual advantage of providing a credit and providing a learning experience. For an innovator seeking a career of opportunities within a large organization, the best projects are likely did be the more mundane ones. Though less exciting, these tend to be among the best for portfolio building. Incremental innovation projects that provide clear benefits, especially those that can be measured in time and money, are the most likely to succeed and impress decision-makers. (World changing projects are wonderful, but they can carry risks they can sink a career.)

2 Succeed in small things that are visible and contribute to larger things. Small things are easier to launch (you can often take the initiative and do them without approval or extra resources), and those that naturally lead to the next project can build momentum for future success.

3 Share success, but be sure to get your measure of credit. No credit, no credentials.

4 Make sure the project gets finished. I had one boss who is absolutely terrified about projects being judged. He could, quite predictably, derail innovation projects a few weeks before delivery. I made sure to deliver early on these projects. (We live in a world where managers have been told to “fail early.”) Diagnosing possible early deliverables and the potential for early termination is good insurance against collecting a resume full of incomplete assignments.

5 Get good at naming projects. It is often the person who comes up with the clever name who is identified with the success.

6 Learn how to adapt successful innovations from other areas. If you can develop the flexibility to see how a new idea in another business or discipline might be transposed to create benefits in your area responsibility. That way,  you will be working ideas with a much higher probability of success forward.

It is good to remember that achievement is just one element of building a portfolio. What you accomplish—and this is especially tricky if you are working in unfamiliar areas—must be understood and appreciated before it can be recognized in a way that provides you with an advantage.

This means that you need to get people excited about the achievement. Successful innovations are socialized, and successful innovators become very adept at socializing their work. This all comes down to networking (which was discussed in a previous post). When it comes to building credentials, this means the network must include decision makers and have strong enough connections to gain attention and interest.

Having such a network relies on to key factors. 1st, the decision-makers need to regularly receive value from you. This could be in the form of service, supporting an idea, providing access to someone of value, or even just sending them interesting articles from time to time. But providing value on regular basis provides entrée when you need it. Second, you must have a good understanding of who these people are—what they want, what they need, and what they care about.

By systematically achieving success in ways that get the attention of decision-makers, an innovator can establish credentials that create opportunities for important innovations. However, the more unfamiliar the “great idea” is, to more effectively it needs to be communicated. Pitching innovation is fraught with dangers that are not present for those who are selling the established ideas, services and products. How this is done will be the subject of my next post in this Saving Innovation series.

Los universitarios recién graduados que acceden por primera vez al mercado laboral, se encuentran con procesos de selección donde, además de evaluar el nivel de idiomas, informática y conocimientos técnicos, les evalúan acerca de, por ejemplo, sus habilidades de comunicación, trabajo en equipo, o liderazgo.

Pero… ¿se les enseñan estas competencias en las Universidades?

Estudios como el realizado por Pedraja, M., Rivera, P. y Marzo, M. (2004) afirman que nuestros universitarios se lanzan al mercado laboral con una gran competencia técnica pero ínfimo nivel en competencias transversales. Esta situación está en proceso de mejora: son cada vez más las universidades que arriman el hombro y ofrecen a sus alumnos nuevos contenidos relacionados con las competencias que se vienen manejando en los departamentos de Recursos Humanos de las empresas.

Entre las acciones más habituales, está la oferta de diferentes cursos (presenciales o e-learning) sobre estas competencias, por cuya realización se ofrecen créditos ECTS con los que completar el expediente académico de los alumnos y poder incluir esta formación en su currículum vitae. Por ejemplo, en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) desde hace ya 6 años el IIC lleva a cabo un programa de desarrollo de competencias para alumnos de últimos cursos, cuyo objetivo es facilitar su inserción laboral.

Hoy les quiero hablar del proyecto en el que está inmersa la Universidad de Huelva, y que tiene como objetivo el desarrollo de competencias en sus alumnos.

El Proyecto Alumno 10C nació en el año 2004 con el objetivo de premiar a los alumnos por su formación en habilidades más allá de las estrictamente académicas y el éxito alcanzado en sus primeras ediciones hizo que en 2006 el proyecto se ampliara con el Aula Alumno 10C, que trata de reforzar y entrenar la formación en competencias del alumnado de la Universidad de Huelva a través de cursos y seminarios. El proyecto se fundamenta en la idea de que “la empleabilidad del alumno será mayor si, además de un buen expediente académico, es capaz de reunir a lo largo de su vida académica una serie de competencias transversales (liderazgo, trabajo en equipo, gestión del cambio, cultura empresarial, identificación de problemas, creatividad, gestión de proyectos, comunicación, etcétera), es decir, una formación integral”, en palabras del profesor Sixto Romero, Director de la Cátedra Cepsa que impulsa el proyecto, en la Primera Acción formativa del proyecto en el curso 2011-2012, a la que tuve el placer de asistir como ponente.

Me gusta especialmente este proyecto porque es algo parecido a un “máster en competencias”: los alumnos asisten a diferentes seminarios y actividades sobre habilidades sociales, idiomas, deporte, cultura… y además se les exige un nivel académico óptimo (igualar o superar la media de su titulación). Es decir, se promueve una formación integral. Posteriormente aquellos alumnos que realizan más del 75% de las actividades ofertadas, reciben el premio de considerarse “ALUMN@”.

Y ser Alumn@ tiene su recompensa: diploma acreditativo, inclusión en la base de datos de alumn@s de la Universidad de Huelva y difusión a empresas, diagnóstico del perfil de competencias de cada alumno, y formación intensiva en competencias y habilidades mediante metodología Outdoor Training.

Aplaudo cada uno de los proyectos que fomenten la formación en competencias en universitarios, y me pregunto…

Igual que existen habitualmente en las universidades servicios específicos de idiomas, ¿por qué no crear centros específicos para el desarrollo de competencias?

Estos centros podrían encargarse de diseñar y llevar a cabo las acciones formativas, difundirlas por todas las facultades, ofrecerlas a universitarios y profesionales que quisieran matricularse…

Es una idea, me consta que varias universidades están pensando en ello y alguna, como al Universidad de Sevilla, ya lo ha puesto en marcha mediante la Escuela de Competencias. ¿Qué les parece?

 Enlaces de interés relacionados:

• Presentación del proyecto curso 2011-2012
• Escuela de competencias

In my last blog entry, “Saving Innovation,” I wrote about unleashing the creative potential that is blocked, sidelined and repressed in big organizations. One of the keys is what I termed “practical imagination.”

Practical imagination is the capability of coming up with novel ideas that are applicable to problems and opportunities that are within reach. Now, I’m a utopian at heart who has spent much too much time reading science fiction. I have all the respect in the world for great, far-reaching ideas that point society toward radical, beneficial transformations. However, dreaming is different from doing, and most people enmeshed in large organizations will not be able to create that kind of massive change. So, practical imagination is more modest—and, perhaps, a better use of their time and energy.

Before becoming an agent for innovation, preparation is necessary. This is especially true for those who may have spent years sidelining creativity in favor of getting today’s assignments done. So, before taking on weary executives and staunch bureaucrats, consider the following:

Do you have or can you produce fresh ideas? Many people will nod their heads, but, in my experience, people in large organizations are more adept at coming up with answers than providing insights. I call this the “A student effect.” You can see it in action in meetings when people believe they are quite clever, even as they list the same ideas that everyone has heard before. They have the right answers. They know their subjects. But they offer nothing new. Practical innovation requires something new. If you offer a reply in a meeting and no one follows up with a question that challenges you, chances are that your idea is not fresh.

There are many books that talk about developing imagination. (Osborne’s classic Applied Imagination is one of my favorites.) These books can be helpful, if used. But the best way to move toward fresh ideas is to acquire and twist new knowledge. This means looking in places that have nothing to do with your current concerns. I believe curiosity is the foundation of imagination (and I’ve written about curiosity previously in “Are we losing our ability to ask good questions?” and in an article “Need to Know: How curiosity drives innovation,” available upon request).

If you don’t regularly explore something you have to know, but which has no immediate value, you may not be prepared to be an agent of innovation.

One of the best ways to integrate new knowledge into your stockpile and make it available for practical imagination is by talking with people regularly whose interests are very different from your own. Bringing that new knowledge into a conversation with someone who has a different point of view will make it accessible and surprising ways when you need it.

Fresh ideas often come in awkward forms. They may formed from the language of conventional ideas, even though you know deep down that there is a piece that is different. In these cases, it is important to identify and explore the essence of what you responded to emotionally. This means doing more than jotting down a few words when an idea occurs to you. If you force yourself to write several sentences, what is special about your idea will become more visible.

On the other hand, the idea may appear wild and impractical. In these cases, I have found that writing a few paragraphs and then leaving the idea alone for a while can help to tame it. The worst thing to do with a wild idea is to share it with other people right away. They will be happy to tell you how crazy it is, and it is unlikely to survive the conversation.

Most ideas are not good, so it is important to have a lot of them. When you are convinced that you are proficient at regularly creating fresh ideas, you are ready for your next step in becoming an innovation agent, establishing your bona fides. I’ll write about this in my next entry, “Incredible credibles.”

I keep hearing that innovation is the path back to prosperity and employment. “You can’t save your way to growth,” it seems. But everyone seems to be trying to do just that. Funding for basic research, education and infrastructure is cut by government. Big firms depend, more and more on buying innovation from startups as a means of managing risk. Investment in the future is being redefined as imprudent, even reckless.

Can innovation survive austerity? In some ways, it will. Many powerful ideas have momentum that even bureaucracies can’t stop. Big companies, major universities and governments will bring these to fruition despite themselves. And we still have creative, imaginative people who cannot be held down. Though starved for resources, they will take their ideas and find ways to make them real.

But our society’s potential for innovation goes beyond those whose recognized talent and connections place them in leading edge labs. And it goes beyond those who have the drive and the luck to work outside the system. We have skilled, inspired and inventive people trapped in big organizations that crush ideas and their spirits. We need their genius if we are to revive economies across the globe. We need to save innovation by making it possible against a headwind of tightening budgets and risk aversion.

Over the next several blogs, I will explore what trapped innovators can do to free themselves:

“You are the resource” will provide advice on how to become as creative as you can be. What can you do everyday to expand your practical imagination?

“Incredible credible” will look at how to put enough “oh wow’s” into your portfolio to be recognized as an innovator – and thus get more access to talent, and possibly resources.

Within this context, I will revisit subject I covered in an earlier post, networking.

“Pitching innovation” will include models for taking innovative ideas and netting them out in inspiring language. This can, of course, provide “elevator pitches” to sell ideas to bigwigs, but there is a more important use. A good pitch can be used by innovators to hold onto the essence of a world-changing concept in the face all those who work to degrade or dismiss it.

Finally, “standing frugal innovation on its head” will provide some thoughts on how the frugal mindset can be used to innovate without resources.

I hope this will provide some fun and practical advice over the next few months. And I welcome any ideas, experiences or opinions you might have to enrich these blogs.

La gran cantidad de datos disponibles sobre la propagación de mensajes mediante herramientas de comunicación electrónica (email, blogs, redes sociales, telefonía móvil, etc.) ha potenciado extraordinariamente la investigación sobre los mecanismos de difusión de la información y del conocimiento. Nuestro grupo del IIC no podía ser ajeno a esa tendencia y ha desarrollado un modelo de propagación de información en redes sociales que bajo el título “Branching dynamics of viral information spreading” ha sido recientemente publicado en la revista norteamericana de física interdisciplinar Physical Review E.

Este modelo es una formulación matemática, basada en un doble proceso de ramificación de Bellman-Harris, de las características que hemos descubierto empíricamente en los procesos de difusión de información y que pueden resumirse en tres:

1. El comportamiento propagador de información de los individuos de una colectividad es muy heterogéneo. Esto significa que, para un mismo asunto, hay un número reducido de individuos super-propagadores mientras que la gran mayoría de ellos muestran una actividad muy por debajo de la media.
2. El grafo de propagación de las cascadas de información presenta una estructura en forma de árbol cuyas ramas, que rara vez se entrecruzan, evolucionan siguiendo un mecanismo de ramificación guiado por el conocimiento que cada propagador tiene de sus vecinos en la red social. Quién reenvía un mensaje lo hace impulsado por la maximización de una cierta utilidad personal en función de la cual decide cuantos mensajes enviar y a quién.
3. La dinámica del proceso de reenvío del mensaje sigue unas pautas temporales que son función de la prioridad que cada persona da a sus tareas lo cual resulta en una gran variedad en los tiempos que se tarda en reenviar una información concreta. Así, lo que resulta más interesante se distribuye antes que los asuntos de menor importancia para el sujeto los cuales, en muchos casos, acaban no distribuyéndose nunca.

Como consecuencia de estos y otros factores, la evolución futura del proceso de difusión en un estado de la propagación no queda plenamente definida por el estado actual del mismo sino que depende también de los estados anteriores. En esta clase de procesos estadísticos, conocidos cómo procesos estocásticos no-markovianos, sucede lo que en una partida de poker en la que las cartas aparecidas en jugadas anteriores condicionan la probabilidad de aparición de nuevas cartas en las jugadas siguientes. 

Además, el factor que determina la difusión que cada individuo da al mensaje no es el número de contactos que tenga en la red social sino cuantos de entre ellos están potencialmente interesados en el mensaje en cuestión. Por eso, no hay correlación entre el número de contactos a los que se reenvía el mensaje y la celeridad con que lo transmiten quiénes participan en ese proceso.

Asimismo, la topología cuasi-lineal de los caminos de propagación hace que sea muy poco probable el que una persona reciba el mensaje de más de una fuente diferente ya que la fracción de los miembros de su entorno social inmediato (primeros vecinos) interesados en el asunto del mismo es normalmente pequeña.

Es indudable la importancia que un correcto entendimiento del fenómeno de la ramificación viral de la información tiene para quiénes se ocupan de la gestión, medición, planificación o predicción de campañas de marketing o comunicación.