We had the fortunate opportunity to interview Dr. Janet Hively, founder of Minnesota’s Vital Aging Network and co-founder of the SHiFT network. In this video, she shares with us what what is unique about Minnesota’s approach to innovation, the conditions necessary for fostering innovation, and the implications for leaders:

We had an opportunity to interview Dr. Moira Gunn, host of Tech Nation (carried by NPR and available as a podcast), at the Synergy 2008 conference in Phoenix, Arizona, last month. We wanted to know what she thinks is innovation, the relationship of innovation with markets, how important innovation is for social leaders, and what it would take for a place like Minnesota to take a leadership position in terms of innovation. For her responses, watch the video:

Ron Fuller is an emeritus teacher at Edison High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Recently, Ron prepared this step-by-step format for creating self-organizing Innovation Cells in schools. With his permission, we are sharing his framework for building ICs in educational settings.

Students are grouped with a licensed staff member by area of interest. (Example: Music, Writing, Computer Programming, Politics, Painting, Robotics, etc)

• The cells would meet daily during advisory time. The cell becomes the students advisory for the year. Cells would have students from all grade levels.
• The cells would select a project or projects to focus on for the school year. (Example: Build a robot, Create a short play, Design a new computer program, Complete a community service project, Study global warming, Lobby for a political cause)
• The cells would meet an additional ½ day once a month to complete work on the project.
• The cells could elect to meet before or after school to complete a chosen project.
• At the end of the year, one cell would be chosen to receive the Thomas A Edison Innovation Award. (Maybe the Superintendent or Mayor could help select the winning cell.)
• An Innovation Fair would be held in the Spring to share innovation ideas and projects with the Edison School Community.
• Innovation Cells could have displays at school open houses and other community events.
• 12th and 11th graders could be academic coaches for 9th and 10th graders in their cell.
• All Licensed Staff would advise an Innovation Cell. Staff would be chosen for cells depending on interests or expertise.
• Business and Community Leaders could come in during the ½ day each month to advise students on cell projects.
• The Innovation Cells would provide a learning focus for advisory and help students develop their creative skills.
• Upper classmen could serve as role models for under classmen.
• We could start with a few Innovation Cells next year and phase them in over the next few years.

(Created by Ron Fuller 2-7-08) (Revised 3-26-08)

Leapfrog Institutes introduces “Innovation Cells” as a way to operationalize Leapfrog in your school, college, business or community. First of all, what’s an Innovation Cell? Leapfrog Institutes has drawn the basics from an article written by Uri Weisflog. Uwe Weissflog is an associate of Cambashi and founder of Pathway Guidance – Europe. This work first appeared in the EAReport, October 2005.We’ve retained a very energizing quote from the author! The material was taken on 07 May 2008 from the Cambashi site.

So, what’s an “Innovation Cell”?

An Innovation Cell (IC) helps to organize a project to make good ideas more operational. ICs help to answer the “So What?” question that usually accompanies new ideas generated by students, faculty, and the community. Innovation Cells have small numbers of people at their core, but may have many affiliate ICs and individuals around the globe via the Internet.

ICs are especially effective when a large gap separates a good idea from a great project that can help materialize that idea.

Comparatively unburdened by tradition and bureaucracy, ICs can operate very rapidly – a major advantage in a rapidly changing world. In other words, responsible ICs can operate with reasonable freedom within the larger organization.

What kind of organization distinguishes the IC? It is self-organization, a product of collaborative work among its members. Self-organization generates ownership, excitement, and commitment among IC members.

How long should an IC last? That is to be locally determined, but in general, until it has completed its task. Thus, some ICs might last a few months while others might continue much longer. On occasion, ICs might choose to terminate because, despite everyone’s best efforts, they determine that insufficient progress has been made.

ICs bring out the “implicit” knowledge and creativity of their members. This provides a self-discovery and self-improvement value in addition to the actual benefits gained from collectively working toward the IC goal.

These benefits may cause the IC to appear inefficient and too unstructured, but many great innovations have come from just such contexts!

“Beyond ICs lies a vast continent of innovative possibilities. Although we understand ICs, there must be many more innovative possibilities we have not yet discovered. To explore this treasure requires the open mind of the explorer himself. This mindset may be one of the most precious results of the work in an IC. Viewed in this way, a new generation of professionals and leaders may emerge to deal with the challenging uncertainties of our future.” -Uwe Weissflog