Let’s get back to innovating …

Let’s get back to innovating …

This week, I received two invites to present at conferences — and my calendar is filling up nicely for the forthcoming academic year. Before COVID-19, there were so many conferences, workshops and symposiums, and where there was great interaction. But that all stopped for the virus. Slowly over 2022, we can see these events coming back, but, for the first time, I feel we are now getting back to normal and properly starting re-engaging with others outside of our Zoom and Teams-driven world.

I think COVID-19 has significantly held back innovation, especially within universities. The move to working from home has provided a further barrier, as the normal academic interactions have slowed down.

One of the great historial weaknesses for innovation in universities is that we lock people with different skills, viewpoints and knowledge into physically separated departments and even campuses … and then even locate those who share subjects beside each other.

Innovation thrives from the interaction of different viewpoints, problem areas, diversity of thought and different skill sets. The best research teams often have complementary skills, some great at theory, others are good with practical things, others who can abstract complex problems, and others who can write well. When theory meets practice and meets a problem, magic happens!

For example, Bell Labs was the home to so many innovations [here]:

“in New Jersey Kelly devised flexible modular rooms along long corridors to accommodate offices, labs and other workspaces. This layout brought together theorists, experimentalists and technicians.

The policy of keeping the office doors open fostered an atmosphere for the free exchange of ideas where newcomers could go and talk with researchers like William Shockley, one of the inventors of the transistor, or Claude Shannon, father of information theory. The Murray Hill building also had labs and machinery available to try out new things. It hosted an amazing repository of scientific and technical know-how.”

With Apple’s new 2.8 million-square-foot headquarters [here] — and that will house over 12,000 employees, the building is designed as a ring so to provide “workplace where people were open to each other and open to nature.” This supports a greater sense of collaboration and interaction.