How To Build Research-Industry Networks
Image © Alice Merkel on Flickr
How To Build Research-Industry Networks with Conversations, Communications, and Collaboration
Written by Betsey Merkel
Research-industry networks develop knowledge in research and business for collaboration and capacity building. The COINs 2010 Conference is an example of how to build this type of strategic engagement for competitive network advantage.
As a co-sponsor of the COINs 2010 Conference, I-Open worked in collaboration with the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD), MIT's Center for Collective Intelligence, and Wayne State University College of Engineering Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, in Savannah, GA USA.
This second international and highly interactive program presented training, workshops, paper presentations, and keynote conversations of research and industry leaders focused on aspects of the emerging Science of Collaboration.
As a result of the committee's support, we were able to dedicate a six-month pre-conference period to share specialized communications and develop on-line community.
Broadcast Conversations
I-Open introduced the concept of broadcast interviews and conference conversations to the COINs steering committee to strengthen programming and develop conference experience.
We chose Livestream as our provider, having worked the toolset to broadcast Northeast Ohio conversations since 2006. Livestream offers a sophisticated library widget (shown below) which is easily copied to blogs and websites.
Within less than 30 days of uploading content to the COINs Conference channel, archive broadcast programming had attracted nearly 100,000 viewer minutes.
Technology tools, like the Livestream widget, enable sharing knowledge at levels appropriate to the development of networked collaborative communities.
Communications Frameworks are a good first step to organize strategic communications in environments that are otherwise information complex. Frameworks establish community values, roles and relationships. They serve as a high-level perspective on categories of investment, and offer starting points to community engagement. The Swarm Creativity Framework was designed to loosely guide the organization of knowledge shared by the COINs 2010 conference community in support of the emerging Science of Collaboration. The Swarm Creativity Framework is a heuristic model of investment based on categories of knowledge important to strengthen the discipline, Swarm Creativity. Categories are associated here for the purpose of generating creative economies, of which collaboration is an integral capacity. The Framework is featured in the COINs 2010 Conference Instructions document below and is a transfer of the Innovation Framework, a successful model of investment in Open Source Economic Development. COINs 2010 Conference Instructions
In addition to what we share, how we share information is important. Contextual transmedia communications distributes information across dedicated social media infrastructure. Each platform has it's own thematic community, interests and preferred multimedia. The publishing process used to engage with the tools, leverages values-based storytelling. This influences strategic thinking and social behavoirs of the 'meta' community. The map shown below visualizes how information was shared to attract and connect COINs 2010 online community.
Collaboration Collaborative workspaces develop community by sharing communications, connecting resources, increasing transparency, and organizing project work. Workspaces sustain and amplify conversations between meet ups so project development can continue. The Swarm Creativity workspace sponsored by I-Open for conference collaborators, is shown below.
In Summary The development of research-industry networks is paramount to engage locally based, globally connected economies for competitive regional advantage. Further, investment in the strategic orchestration and management of dedicated process to support creative approaches to knowledge sharing is critical. This, coupled with data management, content marketing, and continuous technology innovation cultivate collective intelligence. The COINs 2010 Conference offers a tested, comprehensive and sophisticated example of how research-industry conversations, communications and collaboration access the innovation capacity of community. Working this way, universities and colleges can act in partnership with business and government, each occupying a unique leadership position within a larger, collaborative initiative. My highest praise goes to the COINs Steering Committee, academic leaders from Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Collective Intelligence, Savannah College of Art & Design, and Wayne State University's College of Engineering, who despite unknown outcomes, supported and adopted these creative ideas early in conference planning.








