Newsletter
Welcome to another newsletter, our route to bringing the community of practice together by sharing news, resources, connections and details of online and live events. Hope you find it useful - and remember, at the heart of what we do is the spirit of open innovation. So please feel free to share anything from your side – comments, suggestions, offers of help or resources, etc.
In this issue you’ll find several sections – just click the links for more details.
The Supermarket is open - and full of tools you might find useful!
Future Educators programme 2024
Webinars and workshops
Katharina De Vita (now Reader in Innovation at Manchester Metropolitan University - congratulations!) shared some of her experience in the very challenging world of AI and how we can harness its potential for enriching our teaching practices. She also talked about the AI Risk Measure Scale (ARMS) that she developed at the University of Greenwich and how the university encourages the responsible use of generative AI in teaching, learning and assessment. You can find the recording of this webinar here
Tony Morgan will be sharing his thoughts and experience on ‘Diverging and converging for student engagement, diversity and inclusion’. (and he’s even posted this blog piece as a taster!) Details are:
30th January, 2024: 11:00 to 12:00 CET.
Here's the link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82697620486?pwd=jj9YNbaogj2go49tBw3E5V8y4Z0aUa.1.
Overview: Employers seek individuals with problem solving, collaboration and communication skills, commercial awareness and resilience. However, gaps continue to exist between the knowledge students acquire in higher education, and the skills they need to succeed in an ever-changing workplace. Many universities seek to strengthen students’ employability skills using team-based activities and projects, but engaging in teamwork is a challenge for many students. Confidence, personality type, cultural background, and proficiency in the taught language can all impact engagement and inclusion. In this webinar, we'll explore how use of divergence and convergence techniques can foster diversity, inclusion and engagement in higher education, drawing on practical experience and new research at the University of Leeds in the UK.
Our plan for 2024 is to expand our offerings to a monthly frequency (with some time off in the summer for holidays!) There’ll be a webinar or an interactive workshop around the challenges of teaching and coaching innovation….
Spotlight on projects - VISION
You may not know but ISPIM and its network members have been involved in many applied research programmes over the past ten years and continues to do so. Here you’ll find links to past projects and their deliverables – a rich set of resources like games, novel approaches to complement your TCI and tools to help design and deliver courses. Plus news of current projects which you can join in with.
This month we’re focusing on the VISION project which was all about ‘Envisioning the Future of Teaching and Training for Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship’.
Outputs included a series of podcast interviews, reports and two books. - the first of which is an overview and handbook for the project and is available as an open access download.
The second is The Future of Learning Playbook - a practical guide to navigating the changing landscape for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, Drawing on the VISION project this playbook explores the challenges faced in enabling the skills and capabilities we’ll need to mobilise creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship (CIE) to deal with our challenging future. It provides a rich set of easy-to-use canvases, specific examples, and invites readers to begin a journey of reflection to design their own futures.
The Supermarket is (still) open - and full of useful resources
Well, actually it never closed. This refers to the resource base we’ve been building and from which you’re welcome to fill your TCI trolley. You can access cases, activities, tools, games, video and audio and many other materials; it’s open to all and we’d be very pleased to put on the shelves anything you have to share…
Some new stuff on the shelves includes:
Introducing entrepreneurship - a new series of short videos introducing key themes in developing entrepreneurship capabilities
Downloadable open access resources from the GAMIFY project looking at the use of games in innovation management and the VISION project, looking at the changing landscape for learning and skills/capability development around innovation
The Humanitarian Innovation Guide, a rich suite of resources to support innovators working in the humanitarian and development space
Pathways to scale - taking an innovation from a small-sized success story to something which delivers value at scale is not an easy one. The Holy Grail of impact has a lot in common with that elusive quest pursued by King Arthur’s knights, taking them along strange paths, meeting with dragons and disasters and lasting a long time. Similar odds of success too. Choosing your preferred pathway to scale is a key first stage on the journey; fortunately there’s a wealth of experience available from previous attempts and some important lessons on which we can build. In particular we need to see the choices available as lying on a spectrum where we trade off additional external involvement with giving up a degree of control. (Video here/ Podcast here/ Blogpost here)
Grow up fast - not a heartfelt plea by parents of teenagers but the title of a great book by Zach Rattner, founder and CTO of Yembo which captures some powerful learning about innovation and entrepreneurship We talk a lot about learning by doing in the agile innovation process, especially in the context of start-ups. But it’s hard to capture that learning as you go along when so much else is happening as you desperately try to find your way through the fog of uncertainty. Which is why it’s really valuable to have someone who runs a successful start-up which is now scaling well to share their insights. (Video here/ Podcast here)
Start-up success - or not? In this interview with Faisal Abid we explore some of the do’s and don't's of trying to launch and grow a new venture, drawing in particular on his experience in founding and growing a number of businesses including AI start-up zoom.ai and his current work with Eirene Cremations where he is trying to disrupt a long-established and very traditional industry. (Video here/ Podcast here)
Future Educators programme
Following the success of the programme over the past two years and linking our growing community of practice we’ll be running another series during 2024 - details coming very soon. Watch this space!
Interesting links
Here you’ll find new blog posts, videos, podcasts, etc around the teaching and coaching innovation theme:
There’s so much being written and posted these days about the challenges of ‘digital transformation’, especially now that the superheater of AI has been switched underneath the discussion. Two voices with consistently helpful and well-researched perspectives on this are Alan Brown with his ‘Digital economy dispatches’ and Marek Kowalkiewicz with his blog
This is a useful McKinsey piece on organizations growing through innovation
Another thought-provoking post by Greg Satell on the need to take a more evidence-based approach to innovation adoption
An excellent interview by Robyn Bolton exploring the challenges of psychological safety and their implications for managing innovation
Ethan Mollick on the future of organizations is worth a read, not least for its fascinating history of organization charts
Petra de Weerd-Nederhof’s professorial lecture offers some fascinating insights around innovation and resilience
As always, please share any interesting news, helpful links, etc. - drop us a note here
Dates for your diary
Tony Morgan’s webinar, 30th January
ISPIM Porto Alegre (Brazil), 8-10 April, 2024 - we’re working with the organisers to try and integrate several themes and activities related to teaching and coaching innovation
ISPIM Tallinn, June 9-12, 2024 - we’re planning various in-person teaching and coaching activities but do let us know of your ideas and offers for workshops etc.
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