When I first saw the word “innovation” coupled with “government” and “regulation,” my mind jumped to oxymorons such as “jumbo shrimp,” “act naturally,” and “seriously funny”. (Yes, I know that “oxymora” is the plural of “oxymoron”, but I just couldn’t go there today.) In my mind, those concepts just didn’t seem to go together.
But over the last few weeks I’ve been reading about various programs and initiatives governments are putting into place to foster innovation, and some of them are pretty intriguing. I’ve included links to a few of the articles I’ve come across:
“Why The Government Needs To Invest In Innovation”
“Government’s Role in Innovation” (Courtesy of Innocat Jeffrey Phillips, aka @ovoinnovation )
At the risk of introducing politics into our already spirited Innochats, I’d like to tee up the topic of whether and how innovation and government go together . Here are some of the topics we might discuss – my only request is that we keep things respectful and agree to disagree. :-)
Q1. Ideally, what should drive innovation?
Q2. Is there a difference between innovations that have been encouraged by government and those that have been driven by other things?
Q3. What environments are best at encouraging innovation?
Q4. Can government help create those kinds of environments?
Q5. What things would you like to see?
Looking forward to everyone sharing their experiences and thoughts. And if you know someone who might be interested in joining us, please let them know how they can participate. (My recommendation is to use
www.tweetchat.com and enter
#innochat in the search field.)
See you Thursday Feb 17 at noon EST!
Gwen (@Gwen_Ishmael)