I have spent three very productive days with colleagues in Bearing Consulting, on a conference in the classic European city of Budapest. We gathered here to collect our thoughts and discuss our current projects and development within several fields, the most exiting being the new work we are involved in related to innovation management.
The core thoughts in innovation and the impact it can achieve came from a classic economist, Joseph Schumpeter. I remember the 1980s when I studied at Stockholm School of Economics and read Schumpeter for the first time. His ideas were interesting and fresh, despite being close to 100 years old, although at that time I could not relate to them in everyday reality.
Since then, I have seen innovation completely change worklife (personal computers, e-mail, communication) and personal life (the way we organise our lives, travel, communicate). What is fascinating is that the change is not only for us priviledged living in western developed economies, it is also for people in developing countries where the mobile phone seems to have become the number one personal accessory.
The current challenge is how to apply the concept of innovation management on process assessment and development in organisations, to adopt a framework for measuring and implementing innovation in a format which is comparable between organisations.
During our conference we have reached quite far in finding a consensus for how we as consultants can work with this with our clients.
I often feel we live in exciting times. Today here at Budapest airport I feel this way.