How To Build Research-Industry Networks

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COINs 2010 Opening Conversation

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.

What the Livestream Channel looks like when embedded: 

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.

Coins2010_ctc

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.

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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.

Leadership, Abundance and Complexity in Human Systems

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Bundle Bud

Image © Alice Merkel on Flickr

"In 1993 or 1994, a friend handed me Margaret Wheatley's book, Leadership and the New Science. Although I loved learning about quantum physics, I was at that time very into W. Edwards Deming and Total Quality Management (TQM). I handed back the book and said it seemed to have nothing to do with my work (oops!). In 1998 I was on a trip with my son to San Francisco. At the wonderful Exploratorium science museum, they had a featured exhibit on "turbulent landscapes." that included many hands-on displays about complex and chaotic forces in nature. Playing with a large pendulum with a magnet on its tip, and other magnets on the table below it (that could be set to attract or repel the pendulum) I had a literally life-changing moment. In the wild oscillations of the pendulum, I knew the laws of physics were still working. But I saw not just pendulums and magnets, but a physical model of how people interact with ideas and with each other. I was hooked. Applying ideas from complexity science to the work of dialogue, change, and leadership, has been my core focus for more than ten years. I am an avid associate of the Plexus Institute, which is where I met Valdis Krebs, CEO Orgnet.com and June Holley,  thought leader in Network Weaving."

 

Continue to learn more about complexity, change, leadership and dialogue by following Bruce's blog, Complexified.

Learn the wisdom of civic leaders across these I-Open communities:


    •    Facebook I-Open http://tiny.cc/odlg2
    •    Flickr http://tiny.cc/73y6e
    •    Friendfeed http://friendfeed.com/iopen
    •    Livestream http://www.livestream.com/iopen/
    •    Posterous http://i-open.posterous.com/
    •    Scribd http://www.scribd.com/I-Open
    •    Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/IOpen2
    •    Twitter http://twitter.com/iopen2
    •    Vimeo http://tiny.cc/106p0
    •    You Tube http://tiny.cc/j5rse

Images by Alice Merkel on Flickr  

Copyright 2011 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 2563 Kingston Road Cleveland OH 44118 Phone: 216-220-0172 Web: http://i-open.posterous.com/

Making Change One Conversation At A Time

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Star Composite

Image © Alice Merkel on Flickr

Bruce Waltuck, thought leader in Leadership and Change, talks about how he became interested in supporting groups of people making better decisions together.

"I'm a child of the 1960s. I worked on peer councils after race riots in my high school following the death of Dr. Martin Luther King. In college, I helped establish the first student-faculty governance committee at Syracuse University in 1970. Later, my first boss at the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) encouraged us to work "smarter not harder" (not a cliche back in 1980). I became a fan and advocate of Total Quality Management (TQM)  and of Dr. W. Edwards Deming by the late 1980s, and got the chance of a lifetime, to co-create and lead the USDOL's Employee Involvement and Quality Improvement system in 1989. This was a labor-management partnership whose collaborative governance structure later became the basis for articles and stuff I wrote for journals and books. In 1990-1991 I was a negotiator of the DOL's original interest-based collective bargaining agreement - the first of its kind in the U.S. Federal sector. And in 1995-2000, I created and led a new public-private partnership to help employees in the health care industry."

Bruce Waltuck earned an M.A. in Complexity, Chaos, and Creativity (yes, really); is an Associate at the Plexus Institute and a Member of the New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators.

   

Continue to learn more about complexity, change, leadership and dialogue by following Bruce's blog, Complexified.

Learn the wisdom of civic leaders across these I-Open communities:
    •    Facebook I-Open http://tiny.cc/odlg2
    •    Flickr http://tiny.cc/73y6e
    •    Friendfeed http://friendfeed.com/iopen
    •    Livestream http://www.livestream.com/iopen/
    •    Posterous http://i-open.posterous.com/
    •    Scribd http://www.scribd.com/I-Open
    •    Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/IOpen2
    •    Twitter http://twitter.com/iopen2
    •    Vimeo http://tiny.cc/106p0
    •    You Tube http://tiny.cc/j5rse

Images by Alice Merkel on Flickr

Copyright 2011 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 2563 Kingston Road Cleveland OH 44118 Phone: 216-220-0172 Web: http://i-open.posterous.com/

Open Conversations in Regional Economic Development

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Soil

Image © Alice Merkel on Flickr 

Since 2003, I-Open has partnered with technology businesses and college and universities to build neutral civic spaces convening open, guided conversations for regional economic development. I-Open incorporates this process in it's collaborations.

We've learned in networked economies people move in the direction of their conversations. For this reason and because of the need to strengthen and accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship, the communities and regions that move ahead quickly and are not left behind will be those who invest in open conversations.   

The questions we ask determine the direction of our conversations and where we place our attention. In regional economic development attention can translate into millions of dollars of funding. The strategic attention of a small or medium business will determine the difference of a company's success or failure.

Open conversations are important because they build social networks for business development and act as a tool for entrepreneurs to spot new opportunities quickly they might not ordinarily know about. 

Open conversations build transparency and trust. Transparency  by informing everyone present and enabling  anyone with initiative to participate. And trust by observing standards of civility respectful of commentary and accepting of constructive criticism. 

Northeast Ohio Solar and Wind Entrepreneur, Bill MacDermott offers this description from his experience:

"We all have our own unique perspectives. We need to be willing to respect another person's perspective if we want our perspective to be respected in turn. That to me, is an open conversation."

 Ohio's extensive network of colleges and universities are home to a large community of positive change research leaders and consultants. Appreciative Inquiry, developed at Case Western Reserve University  in Cleveland, Ohio is a practice adopted by some civic leaders to guide open conversations and accelerate positive change. Open conversations cultivate deep reflection, rich insights and fresh perspectives on entrepreneurial innovations. 

 Gloria Ferris, Partner, Meet The Bloggers, is one such civic leader. In the video below she teaches us about the value open conversations bring to regional prosperity. Gloria has led many Northeast Ohio I-Open Open Conversations and is considered a valued guide in the civic community.

Where are open conversations happening in your community?

Innovation and Entrepreneurial Networks: REI.Tuesdays, a Platform for Civic Engagement

REI.Tuesdays

(download)

2003 - 2005 REI.Tuesdays.-- weekly civic forums convened by the Center for Regional Economic Issues (REI) at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio engaged over 3,000 civic, business, government, and academic leaders from across 23 Northeast Ohio counties.

REI.Tuesdays civic forum conversations (Slide #2 above) address enterprise opportunity through the lens of the Innovation Framework - a heuristic model of investment in Open Source Economic Development (Slide #3).

The conversation matrix (Slide #4) provides an information infrastructure to underpin strategic scheduling and project presentation in the entrepreneurial community. Civic forums also introduce Strategic Doing - a simple, yet disciplined process to quickly move ideas to action (Slide #5) - and offer feedback loops for project work continuing outside of the regular forum schedule.

REI.Tuesdays is an example of how the civic forum process builds open economic networks for innovation to flourish and generates transformative enterprise for regional business development, human and organizational capacity building (Slide #6).

In terms of a model, REI.Tuesdays

  • Was funded by the telecommunications industry, SBC Global Ameritech
  • Supported by the Center for Regional Economic Issues, Case Western Reserve University, and 3000 Northeast Ohio business, government, academic, and civic entrepreneurs
  • Delivered social capital, web 2.0 platforms, local and global industry networks, generations of learning communties, and transformative industry clusters, and
  • Serves as a model for other forums, such as Fridays@The Corridor, Charleston Technology Corridor, Charleston, South Carolina and Thursdays at the House, Indiana Humanities Council, in Indianaoplois, Indiana.

The I-Open Civic Forum process is a successful approach to connect regional research and industry innovation for enterprise development in Open Source Economic Development.

Betsey Merkel, Co-Founder & Director of I-Open, is designer of the I-Open Civic Forum process.

References:

 

Dialogue & Inclusion: Midtown Wednesdays Conversation Matrix

Open_ceiling

Open Ceiling

Photo: Alice Merkel

The Midtown Wednesdays Conversation Matrix was built for Midtown Wednesdays, an I-Open Civic Forum convened by Chancellor University (formerly Myers University) in Cleveland, Ohio.

The matrix (screenshot below) is a tool to loosely organize conversations at a shared level of inquiry from several perspectives. 

Midtown Wednesday forums sought to examine three questions:

1.   What is our innovation opportunity? 

2.   What is our creative industry opportunity? and,  

3.   What is our global opportunity?  

Further framing of conversations via the categories of the Innovation Framework - a heuristic model for innovation investment in Open Source Economic Development - helps coordinators, communicators, and conveners guide community learning.

Matrices provide an under gird for conversations in their generation of social networks, collaborative economic development projects, and new business development.

You can learn more about Midtown Wednesdays, a public-private partnership to strengthen economic development in Cleveland, hosted by Chancellor University, the City of Cleveland's Department of Economic Development, National City Bank, and I-Open in 2006 at I-Open's Civic Projects.

Midtown Wednesdays Conversation Matrix

Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA.

 

 

 

COINS 2010 “Lybba - Unleashing swarm creativity to make open-source healthcare a reality”

In his opening keynote, Jesse Dylan, award winning director of the Obama campaign video "Yes we can" and Peter Gloor, MIT Research Scientist, talk together about Lybba - an open source approach to knowledge sharing and caring - is helping give life to the open source healthcare movement.

Lybba's mission is to connect people with the community, information, and resources they need to take care of themselves and one another. Lybba creates online environments, media campaigns, and social experiments that forge meaningful relationships between hospitals and schools, doctors and patients, researchers and policy-makers. The organization takes an ethical and ecological approach to every challenge it faces. It combines media, design, science, and technology to make a difference, free for all, free of commercial interest.

Jesse's ultimate goal is to bring together every patient looking for answers and provide a platform so that every stakeholder in chronic and rare diseases has a voice to create a community where innovation, empowerment, and compassion flourish.

Conversations such as the COINs 2010 Opening Keynote, are examples of sharing knowledge to advance creativity and dialogue widely for global industry competitive advantage.

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Trustees Theater, beautiful restored theater and Savannah College of Art & Design facility, site of COINs 2010 Opening Keynote Conversation.

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Ken Riopelle, Ph.D., Conversation Moderator and Research Professor, Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI.

 

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Jesse Dylan, CEO and Creative Director, Lybba and Peter Gloor, Research Scientist, MIT Center for Collective Intelligence in conversation with the audience about the future of open source health care resources.

Images by Alice Merkel

 Dylan is a filmmaker and CEO and creative director of FreeForm, a full-service  production company with a focus on corporate social responsibility and social media. In addition, he is a prolific director behind some of the most successful campaigns in commercial television, print and interactive advertising. Dylan has created award-winning commercials for clients, including the Barack Obama administration, Nike, Nintendo, Motorola, American Express, the National Football League and MTV.

I-Open, with Galaxy Advisors, was a co-sponsor of the COINs 2010 Conference.

COINs2010: Conversations in Collaboration Savannah, Georgia

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I-Open is a proud co-sponsor of the COINs 2010 Conference Oct 7-9 in Savannah, Georgia, connecting research and industry leaders to advance the emerging science of collaboration.

 Register here.

Keynote speakers and paper presentations will be streamed live featuring cutting edge research in science, design, and technology with an emphasis on creativity, government, health care, energy, education, government, and transportation.

 Register here.

Workshops focus on practices in collaboration, open platforms, and team building - all immediately applicable skills for leaders in education, economic, and workforce development.

Register for

  • social network practice, projects, and tool proficiency
  • collaboration skills
  • service design thinking
  • collective action and social change
  • collaborative global teaming
  • strengthening habits of idea creation

 Register here.

In addition, COINs 2010 Conference is cross collaborating with the Design Ethos Conference (program) resulting in a serendipitous gathering of global minds in filmmaking, technology, design, and sustainability.

Check in now to the COINs 2010 Conference site - an online destination designed by SCAD designer, Amit Bapat - to explore and connect your social networks into a deeper, wider, global COINs2010.

Get started to become more creative! 

 Register here.

 

From Jack Ricchiuto: the Power of Conversations

Based in Northeast Ohio, Jack Ricchiuto is a national thought leader in the design of conversations.

Not long ago conversations were considered a dangerous waste of time.

Today, conversations offer new value to strengthen transparency, a modern imperative for industry transformation.

With new tools, skills and good habits, communities can generate quality solutions to respond to unexpected social, economic, and environmental issues, as well as recognize abundant enterprise opportunities.

Our thanks to Jack and many other practice leaders as we fine tune our capacity to engage in conversation and collaborate. 

Learn more about Jack and his work at DesigningLife.


 

 

About I-OPEN

I-Open is the architect of a new type of civic infrastructure.

This infrastructure connects entrepreneurs and their ideas to resources and capabilities in established organizations and institutions.

Learn more across these I-Open platforms:
I-Open http://i-open-2.strategy-nets.net
Facebook I-Open http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35942064712&ref=ts
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/iopen/sets/
Friendfeed http://friendfeed.com/iopen
Livestream http://www.livestream.com/iopen/
Posterous http://i-open.posterous.com/
Scribd http://www.scribd.com/I-Open
Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/IOpen2
Twitter http://twitter.com/iopen2
Vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/user1999383
You Tube http://www.youtube.com/user/IOpen2

Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel http://www.betseymerkel.extendr.com/ and I-Open http://i-open.org/. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA