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.

Stories to Raise All Global Boats

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Turning a Corner

Image © Alice Merkel on Flickr   

Joshua Dysart, American Writer of Graphic Novels and Comic Books, shares an account of his life exploration seeking harmony, creative and aesthetic integration, and ultimately, a connection to one human global society.

Josh talks about how the maturation of our personal experiences in technology and creativity can power relevance and meaning by planting seeds for a better future, and set the stage for global collaboration.

Dysart spent a month in the tribal war zone of Uganda for his work - a treatment of The Unkown Soldier for Vertigo Comics and has earned a nod from the Eisner Award committee as a contender for Best New Comic. 

You can learn more about Josh's work at http://www.joshuadysart.com

 Stories to Raise All Global Boats from I-Open on Vimeo.

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

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/

Comics: Storytelling for Cultural Imperatives

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Three Portraits

Image © Alice Merkel on Flickr

 American comic book writer, Joshua Dysart, asks for a strong, intelligent, diverse global debate on the individual vs. the collective - to address humanity's integration with each other and the natural environment.

Josh's use of art, metaphor, and dialogue brings storytelling to a new level. Stories once limited to single dimensional reporting are shared now as mature art forms brought to life by sophisticated digital platforms connecting audiences everywhere. New levels of aesthetic integration enhance our ability to share as one global voice, one world.

Josh is known for dark themes, humanist horror and a fascination with the roots of violence. He has created work for DC Comics, Vertigo Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Image Comics and worked on high profile projects like Van Helsing, Swamp Thing, and Hellboy (with Mike Mignola).

You can learn more about Josh's work at http://www.joshuadysart.com

Comics: Storytelling for Cultural Imperatives from I-Open on Vimeo. 

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

Three Portraits was taken at the Savannah College of Art & Design Student Center, October 2010.

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/

 

 

 

COINs 2010 Keynote: Jesse Dylan | Most Creative People 2010 | Fast Company

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From the article:

Jesse Dylan, Director; Founder Form; FreeForm

"You could see the eyes of the people getting liquid," says CERN experimental physicist Maria Spiropulu of the crowd for a Jesse Dylan short film. The audience? Google's Larry Page, Tesla's Elon Musk, and elite scientists in the fields of astro-particle physics, cosmology, and dark matter. The film? Six minutes on the Large Hadron Collider, the massive particle accelerator designed to replicate the big bang and address core questions of physics. "The language of the microcosm we are exploring can be described very well with mathematics," Spiropulu says. "It is very difficult to make a picture or a poem of what we do. The film captured an adventure to discover the unknown. It is haunting and it sticks with you." More...

Jess Dylan brings extraordinary creative perspectives as Collaborative Innovation Networks COINs 2010 Conference Keynote speaker Oct 7, 2010.

I-Open is conference co-sponsor and supports the value Jesse's leadership in creative digital media brings to creativity, communication, and collaboration in Open Source Economic Development.

More on Jesse's COINs 2010 Conference Keynote:

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" talks about how his nonprofit, Lybba, 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. It 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.

Join us! Learn and connect at:

COINs 2010 - a collaborative interactive community Web site