Term begins: Two experts offer their professional view of innovation

Two high-profile speakers from high-tech businesses visit the Business School to talk about the nature and role of innovation.

Two industry experts, experienced in the management of innovation in large companies in the IT sector, visited the Business School to share their insights on how innovation must work in advanced economies. Dr Irving Wladawsky-Berger is the former chief technology officer at IBM, and Lemuel Lasher is the chief innovation officer at Computer Sciences Corporation.  Both are adjunct professors at the School.

Mr Lasher spoke on 8 October as part of the 'Distinguished Guest Lecture,' a series which invites speakers from areas related to the School's specialist interests.  He explained his role as chief innovation officer in a global company with 92,000 staff.  His organisation has a strong track record in innovation, having been awarded the APQC Innovation Award's Best-Practice Partner Award for successfully embedding innovation in 2007, and in 2008, the Best-Practice Partner Award for Improving Front-End Effectiveness.

Mr Lasher defines innovation as:
"The probabilistic outcome from the creative application of intellectual capital in a disciplined manner to a problem."

The future for innovation and intellectual property

In a presentation that linked theory with real world application, Mr Lasher outlined a number of developments in advanced economies since the industrial revolution which have moved the locus of value creation. With each shift, commercial and legal practices have adapted to reflect the new era of intellectual and commercial exchange.

As western economies extended beyond agriculture into manufacturing, so land gave way to the factory as the crucial asset for wealth creation. Corporations of the 20th century were ideally suited to develop ideas into physical products. Patents and commercial secrecy were suitable tools to protect intellectual capital in this system.

Increasing levels of interaction in the process of developing businesses, known as open or 'distributed' innovation, twinned with a broadening of corporate funding are now radically altering the commercial terrain. "Today, you can be a clever person, with a good idea and a private equity firm will support your growth," said Mr Lasher. "We are moving to an open form of innovation. With greater interactivity, the old methods of intellectual property and protection just aren't sufficient for most industry sectors. We need to find new ways of doing things," he said.

Science's hidden role in the future of services

Dr Irving Wladawsky-Berger, speaking on 13 October, reflected on the issues covered by the Royal Society's recent report, entitled ‘Hidden Wealth: the contribution of science to service sector innovation - here. Taking a macro-economic view, Dr Wladawsky-Berger considered a challenge facing modern political and commercial leaders: 200 year's experience in product manufacturing has provided too few tools and techniques for the development, design and improvement of services. Yet, without these new tools, it seems extremely difficult to improve the standard of living in advanced economies, where over 70% of GDP derives from service provision.

"Engineering and professional manufacturing have given us some answers, said Dr Wladawsky-Berger. "But we already see that standardisation, specialisation and automation are not the right tools to develop services - which are heavily reliant on people and the skills they deploy."

Responding to digital threats

Web-related technologies which defined and created readily accessible global markets for consumers also exposed local service providers to competitors in other territories. Competition came to find service-led businesses. Well-run manufacturing firms had R&D tools to deploy when markets opened years before, yet the service sector is still searching for solutions to ensure consistent, high-quality and productive delivery of new and existing services.

One idea which Dr Wladawsky-Berger feels may hold the answer is what has been called the "T-shaped professional". This metaphor illustrates highly-effective people who have a deep, specialist expertise and offer a broader set of skills - the top-stroke of the letter ‘T'. This combination is seen by a growing number of commentators as a way of unlocking future innovations in advanced economies. It is also one of the principles at the heart of Design London and the MBA programmes IED module.

Both Dr WB and Mr Lasher have been invited to return to participate in the ongoing discussion about how innovation can be used to catalyse economic recovery. More information will be posted on the School's events page .

Biographies
1) Lemuel Lasher is President of Global Business Solutions Group (GBS) and Chief Innovation Officer of Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), a leading global consulting, systems integration and outsourcing company.

In his role as CIO of Computer Sciences Corporation, Lemuel is responsible for the five global units of the company's Office of Innovation: the Leading Edge Forum, Research Network, Global Solutions Organization, CSC Collective Intelligence and Knowledge Management & Enablement.

As Group President of GBS, Lemuel oversees CSC's regional Consulting and Systems Integration business in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia Pacific region.
Prior to joining CSC in 1990 as Director of Commercial Program Development for Network Integration, Lemuel held various vice-presidential and executive positions with companies including Integrated Software Resources, Deca Group, Aitta, Investment Seminars and Elan Vital.

2) Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, former Chief Technology Officer at IBM, had focused on innovation and technical strategy for IBM for 37 years. He was responsible for identifying emerging technologies and marketplace developments critical to the future of the IT industry, and organizing appropriate activities in and outside IBM in order to capitalize on them. He led a number of IBM's companywide initiatives including the Internet and e-business, supercomputing, Linux, and Grid computing. He continues to consult for IBM on major new market strategies like Cloud Computing and Smart Planet.

In March of 2008, Dr. Wladawsky-Berger joined Citigroup as Strategic Advisor, helping with innovation and technology initiatives across the company. He is helping to formulate Citigroup initiatives related the future of global banking, including mobile banking, Internet-based financial services, and financial systems modeling and analysis.

He is Visiting Lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management and Engineering Systems Division, Adjunct Professor in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the Imperial College Business School, and Senior Fellow at the Levin Institute of the State University of New York. He is a member of the InnoCentive Advisory Board, the Spencer Trask Collaborative Innovations Board, the Board of Directors of the Federation of American Scientists, the Visiting Committee for the Physical Sciences Division at the University of Chicago and the Board of Visitors for the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin.

He was co-chair of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee, as well as a founding member of the Computer Sciences and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council. He is a former member of the Univer s ity of Chicago Board of Governors for Argonne National Laborator ies, of the Board of Overseers for Fermilab and of BP's Technology Advisory Council. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A native of Cuba, he was named the 2001 Hispanic Engineer of the Year.
Dr. Wladawsky-Berger received an M.S. and a Ph. D. in physics from the University of Chicago.

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