Knowledge and Innovation Network

KIN Autumn 2007 Workshop

'KM 2010'                                                                    

Workshop: Wednesday 5th & Thursday 6th September

Venue: Scarman Conference Centre, University of Warwick

KIN Summer 2007 Workshop

'Open Innovation'                                                                   

Networking Barbeque: Evening of Tuesday 3rd July

Workshop: Wednesday 4th July 

Venue: 'Uplands', High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

As the author Henry Chesborough says “not all the smart people work for you”. Organisations are increasingly aware that generating or exploiting ideas or potentially useful product or service knowledge need not be confined to their traditional resources, such as R&D and marketing departments. Some are developing customer and supplier models which embrace a new, "open" model of innovation. Using this model, companies look far beyond their traditional horizons for ideas and intellectual property. Some are taking this even further and license their unutilized home-grown IP to other organizations, even rivals, through intermediate markets.

Our keynote speaker was Professor Georg von Krogh, Chair of Strategic Management and Innovation Department of Management, Technology, and Economics ETH Zurich.  KIN Members Orange presented on their innovative 'Partner Programme'. Other Open Innovation case studies were presented by BAE Systems and Air Products.

We held our summer networking barbeque the evening before, 3rd July, in the grounds of the lovely location, 'Uplands' near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.

KIN Spring 2007 Workshop

'How Groups Learn'                                                                    

This quarterly workshop took place on 26th March where we further explored the world of People and KM, looking specifically at 'How groups learn' sharing members' experiences in these areas as well as hearing from two of our key associates, Ian Corbett and Carlota Vollhardt. They led our exploration of how individuals learn and how this affects how they learn in groups to help us to better understand how KM teams and others can work together to maximise group learning in member organisations.

This was another ideal opportunity for KM practitioners to work more closely with HR Professionals and Training and development Teams within member organisations - and it was good to see people from HR and Learning teams from various organisations.

During this workshop, Ian used The Basadur profile to help us to understand our preferences when we are 'creative problem solving', looking at individual profiles and how these affect group learning as well as showing group profiles for the KIN network.

On the evening of 26th we held our member networking dinner, which was a great opportunity to get to know new and existing members in a relaxed social setting and to carry on conversations and discussions from the workshop earlier in the day.

On 27th March there was a meeting for the Action Learning Groups where Ian Corbett helped us to focus on group learning within KIN, taking us through the effective set-up of our ALGs, setting realistic goals and contracting with each other to take action and learn from these activities.

In the morning session we explored the theory and set up of ALGs and in the afternoon we divided into our respective groups to develop plans for the 'Communities of Practice', 'Knowledge Retention and Transition' and 'Learning from Projects' ALGs, with help and direction from both Ian and Carlota. The ALGS will now meet at various times to report back on next steps in their action groups.