Innovation Comes in All Sizes.

Innovation Comes in All Sizes.It Is Often the Result of Combining Two or More Ideas to Create a Third One

Innovation, in today’s chaotic business environment has emerged as the primal strategy for driving faster growth, increasing revenue share and even survival! It is increasingly becoming a fundamental factor helping companies cope with disruptive technologies, short product lifetimes, super low cost competition, the need to replace products sooner and the ammunition to face new competition. Innovation is simply not about inventing, re-inventing and churning out new ideas.


And, it doesn’t just create new products or services. It unlocks hidden value in existing ones – thereby reinvigorating a business without completely reinventing it. It is a disciplined process by which an idea is generated that result in significant economic value creation and improved customer experience.


Innovations are based on combining ideas in creative new ways by design or accidents or both. Forbes magazine came up with an interactive list of the top 85 innovations that changed the way we live and do business and on that list it includes frozen food as the top innovation of 1924, appropriately followed by the microwave in 1947 and the first electronic digital computer in 1942 and, of course, Pong in 1972. These are no questions big invention as well as big innovations that change our lives. Companies are always for big innovations that include earth shattering new products that will leave the competition in the dust. It is east for them to overlook small innovations, which bring incremental additional income or – more likely – result in relatively small but nevertheless significant cost savings.

Toyota is a good example of an organization bringing not only big but also small continuous innovation to their products. Many of Toyota's innovations are small and are often about improving the efficiency of their just-in-time logistics. But the results have been very big: Toyota is consistently one of the most – if not the most – profitable car companies in the world year after year.


Whether it is big or small innovation, it is often the result of combining two or more ideas to make a third then two plus two can equal five. In the ancient world one of the great discoveries was that by combining two soft metals, iron and tin, you could create a strong alloy, bronze. In a similar way combining two minor inventions, the coin punch and the wine press, gave birth to the mighty printing press. It is kind of a cook making fusion dishes. The difference here is deciding ‘what’ to combine and the ‘how’ too.

Celebdaq is a weird combination that worked for the BBC is their celebrity stock exchange. On this site you can take a future option on the media coverage for your chosen celebrity and then watch your option rise or fall in value. By marrying Hello magazine and financial spread betting the BBC has created a radical innovation that is proving very popular.


Nearly every new idea is a synthesis of other ideas. So a great way to generate ideas is to force combination possibilities. Get your team together and let them play with mesh-ups from wildly different sources. Take it to the extreme. How could you combine your key concept with random products, services, places, personalities, etc? The more bizarre the combination the more original the ideas that are triggered. Innovation needs random sources of inspiration, anything from watching people to strange noises from your air conditioner.

Here's one innovation story. Viennese composer Frank Schubert often found musical inspiration in his coffee grinder. The chaotic pitches and rhythms it made often suggested themes to him. He'd find himself grinding coffee, hear something "original" and go straight to the piano to hunt for the notes and phrases that sounded like the patterns the grinder just made. This kind of hearing is akin to what psychologists call "clang association." So net time if you neighbor is making lots of noises, you can start seeing (hearing) them as sources of innovation!

Original Post: http://mootee.typepad.com/innovation_playground/2008/10/innovation-comes-in-all-sizes-it-is-often-the-result-of-combining-2-or-more-ideas-to-create-a-third-one.html

Now Google Wants Our Brains

Now Google Wants Our Brains
Those of us in the web marketing and search arena both love and fear Google. Google, directly or indirectly, makes us money and can send our sites millions of visitors; on the other hand, Google knows a LOT about us. Their Toolbar, Analytics, Adsense, Gmail, and, of course, Search are all happily gathering petabytes of data about our behavior. Now, Google is employing neuromarketing technology to peer inside our brains:

In a study released Thursday, Google and MediaVest used NeuroFocus findings to show that overlay ads appearing in YouTube videos grab consumers’ attention and boost brand awareness…

To that end, the NeuroFocus research conducted in May looked at the reactions of 40 people to YouTube InVideo overlay and companion banner ads from a cross-section of MediaVest advertising clients…

The study revealed that viewers found overlays “compelling and engaging,” generating high attention and emotional engagement levels across different brands and types of video. On a one to 10 scale, the ads scored a 6.6 in effectiveness, which is considered showing “a high effect.” [From Online Media Daily - Google: This Is Your Brain On Advertising by Mark Walsh.]

Having a high profile, tech savvy firm like Google not only sponsor a neuromarketing study but trumpet the results to the public is indeed a good thing for both Neurofocus and the industry. As is common with so many neuromarketing studies, this one didn’t actually tie ad viewing to eventual consumer behavior, but focused on the emotional activation caused by the ad. That’s not all bad, though - just showing that these overlay ads are processed by the brain is good news for Google and others promoting them as a viable advertising strategy.

Over at WebProNews, Jason Lee Miller finds the combination of brain research and marketing “disturbing,” but points out that the research does show that just counting clicks is a poor measure of the effectiveness of advertising. Garrett Rogers at ZDNet notes, “The research presented definitely makes InVideo overlay ads look like a compelling option for advertisers. It will be interesting to see how long it takes before it really catches on.”

Cheers to Google for thinking outside the box and using neuromarketing to prove the effectiveness of new and perhaps less intrusive ways to deliver ads.

Original Post: http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/google-neuromarketing.htm

Fear & Creativity: Responses to Modern World

Fear & Creativity: Responses to Modern World

Research by the British firm Henley Centre labels the modern world ‘the risk society,’ because there is so much uncertainty, change, and a loss of traditional institutions and support structures.

The modern world evokes two powerful and very different responses from people. Some react to change by becoming afraid to take risks, pessimistic, and constrained in their lives, and they therefore feel the need for more security.

But many individuals also feel they have the power and freedom to live as they want and to shape their own lives. They embrace risk and assert control in their lives. They feel free, and they are optimistic. They turn to creativity and the desire to create and experience new things.

Almost everyone experiences both at one time or another, and many of us switch between these feelings, depending on what’s happening at any given moment. But these two psychological models have a strong impact on choices that we make as consumers, voters, and members of society.

The Virtual World: Living a Second Life

The Virtual World: Living a Second Life


What if you were too frightened to go outside of your house? Then what? Well, you might be able to live a decent life in the virtual worlds like Second Life. Perhaps it would even be an interesting one.

And even if you’re not exploring the virtual possibilities out of fear, you may still find a lot of interesting things there to entertain and educate yourself. But you could also just find experiences to reinforce your existing world view.

There are now people in Japan, primarily young people, who stay in their rooms 24 hours a day, afraid to leave, and spending all their time in online worlds. This is an extreme reaction to the stresses of the modern world, to be sure, but the fact that there are enough of these people to constitute a trend gives us a glimpse of the how people can be psychologically damaged by modern society.

And many companies are experimenting with Second Life to conduct meetings, so that people don’t have to travel. British Petroleum has its own private island in Second Life where an advanced research group is experimenting with meeting spaces and project team rooms.

If people stopped going to real meetings, and only went to virtual ones, what would happen to the travel industry?

Innovation Predictions 2008

Innovation Predictions 2008
Get ready for … anything. As companies, governments—indeed, entire countries—confront an array of dilemmas, the only constant will be change
by Bruce Nussbaum


Building the next-generation enterprise—and maybe even the next-generation nation—will preoccupy most of us in 2008. The demand for innovation is soaring in the business community and is just beginning to gain traction in the political sphere. Most of the leading Presidential candidates have thoughtful positions on innovation (BusinessWeek.com, 11/15/07). And nearly all CEOs and top managers who have learned the language of innovation are now seeking the means to make it happen. It took the Quality Movement a generation to change business culture. The Innovation Movement is still in its infancy, but it's growing fast.

You can see that in the vast changes taking place within the field. Companies are demanding new tools and methods to execute that change within their existing organizations, as well as for the kind of design thinking that transforms cultures. To take advantage of the opportunities, chief innovation officers in big corporations such as Procter & Gamble (PG) and Harley Davidson (HOG) are leaving to join consultancies or set up shop for themselves. Consolidation is quickening apace as small innovation consultancies try to combine big-picture thought leadership with specific, on-demand Web applications that manage networks, talent, customers, suppliers, and employees around the world. In 2007, consultancy Monitor bought into innovation strategy specialists Doblin, led by Larry Keeley, while another large consultancy, BSG Alliance acquired research firm New Paradigm, led by Wikinomics co-author Don Tapscott.

What's up for 2008? Keep an eye on the business schools. Companies are demanding that their managers be more creative and less obsessed with cost and efficiency. The last revolution within executive education was the introduction of Management Science in the 1950s. Will we see the spread of IM—Innovation Management—in "exec ed"?

Privacy, Mobility, and the Next Big Idea
And expect the whole realm of social networking to change in 2008. Just when you "got it" and thought it was all about open, personal, and casual online relationships, social media will morph into another ecosystem—one with lots of gates. Who your friends are is becoming far more important than how many friends you have. We can probably thank our advertising friends for this. The drive to monetize Facebook and MySpace (NWS) by using members' personal information is alienating many people, driving them to more private networks. Stay tuned, and watch Europe and Brazil for future trends. Social networks are beginning to feel a lot like hot nightclubs—with velvet rope barriers.

As for hot products in 2008, prepare for yet more surprises. The triumph of opening up the cell phone will create an array of new applications we can only dream of right now. GPS may seem old hat by next summer. The mobile Facebook is bound to be fascinating. And the e-book may be just an iteration away from taking off. Want to reduce your personal carbon footprint easily? Read books, magazines, and newspapers on an e-book.

And the Big Idea for 2008? Stop competing against your competitors. Your traditional rivals aren't your biggest worry. Disruptive innovation is hitting corporations from outside their business. Verizon (VZ) was forced to open its cell-phone service because Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) smacked it hard. Verizon's new business model will probably generate 10 times the demand for service. You just never know. That's life, in beta.

Apple's new notebooks answer the call for innovation

Apple's new notebooks answer the call for innovation
Apple's new MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air notebooks set the bar for low price and extraordinary design
TAGS: Apple


By now, there's probably relatively little you don't know about Apple's new Mac notebooks, but just in case I'll catch you up. All new Mac notebooks, including the $1,299 MacBook, are built from a one-piece aluminum frame. They feature a new Nvidia integrated chip set and GPU silicon, share an LED-lit glass display that is flush all the way to a very skinny bezel, and meet EPA's highest standards for green manufacturing.

The $1,299 MacBook has turned into something akin to a 13.3-inch MacBook Pro. Costing $700 less, MacBook nevertheless sports the most-requested features from MacBook Pro, including the metal chassis and integrated Nvidia graphics.

[ What if notebook manufacturers kept pace with available technologies? See "The best laptop money can't buy" and "The perfect laptop, take two" | Also, check out the Enterprise Mac blog. ]

Apple's MacBook Pro is a real winner in the desktop replacement category. It shares the new MacBook's unibody frame, but sizes up the display to 15.4 inches and incorporates hybrid integrated/discrete 3-D graphics. The hybrid design starts with MacBook's power-efficient Nvidia 9400M chip set with integrated graphics (this uses system memory as graphics memory), but adds a discrete, 32-way Nvidia 9600M GT GPU that users can kick into action for CAD, math acceleration, gaming, or just a way-snappy GUI. By shifting gears from discrete to integrated, Apple claims that MacBook Pro grabs an extra hour of battery life, rising from four hours to five.

The least you can spend for a metal MacBook is $1,299, while the top of the line is the $2,499 MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM and 512MB of graphics RAM. The more modest white plastic MacBook is available for $999, but it's worth the extra money for the metal and the Nvidia chip set. MacBook Air, still in its youth, has been refitted with the Nvidia 9400M integrated graphics chip set as well.

WorldBooks had it first
You could say that I saw much of this coming. Back in July, I laid out the specifications for what I considered to be the perfect notebook computer -- actually, two perfect notebook computers. I took what knowledge I have about manufacturing processes, component costs, and user's desires (well, my own) and painstakingly "designed" a pair of imaginary notebook PCs that my editors polished and dubbed WorldBook. I based the designs on a mating of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, and incorporated things like an edge-to-edge flat glossy display, an oversized buttonless glass trackpad, hybrid integrated (low-power) and discrete (high-performance) GPUs, removable hard drive, DisplayPort video output, and uncommonly long battery life. All of these features have found their way into MacBook or MacBook Pro. Features that I tossed in for the sheer hell of it, like a solar panel and a simple display under the trackpad, did not make Apple's list.

Still, I called it. Genius, you say? Oh, you flatter me. I merely crystallized what professionals want from their notebooks. The similarities between my imaginary specs and Apple's real notebooks indicate only that Apple is tuned in to the frustration and ennui of commercial notebook buyers. Still, I couldn't see the upside to remaking the MacBook and MacBook Pro for Apple. Why would Apple subject its bread-and-butter notebooks to the "anything goes" design and engineering romp that resulted in MacBook Air? Left untouched except for CPU and bus speed bumps, Mac notebooks would grow market share without a drain in R&D. Nobody would fault Apple for sticking to a formula that, by most measures, doesn't need improvement.

Apple is no stranger to either ingenuity or the courageous application of same, but if any company is now in a position to benefit from just coasting, it's Apple. Shows you how much I know. Whatever points I earned for insightfully pinpointing several key design elements of Apple's new models are driven into deficit by my conservative assumptions about optimizing manufacturing processes and my naive read of the silicon supply chain.

Apple surprised me by bravely returning to its old tricks, including in-house silicon engineering and radical manufacturing innovation. In the case of silicon, Apple took the Nvidia 9400M desktop chip set and the 9600M GT desktop GPU and adapted them for notebook use. As I desired, MacBook Pro shifts from low-power integrated graphics, still claimed to be five times faster than the Intel integrated graphics in prior MacBook and MacBook Air, to a 32-way GPU. Courtesy of Nvidia's chip set, Apple goosed memory and front-side bus speed to 1,066MHz. This is several notches past nifty.

The view from Nvidia
Let's be clear: I haven't laid my hands on these machines yet, so I won't characterize anything more than the creativity and daring of their design, except to offer that in my experience, Nvidia's got excellent chip set chops, as evidenced by its share in the x86 server chip set space. I did not know that Nvidia has a hybrid integrated/discrete GPU solution. I'm not sure how much of Nvidia's Mac notebook technology was derived from Apple's guidance. Apple claims to have contributed to Nvidia's design, but admits that it holds no exclusive on the result, meaning that we'll soon see this 9400/9600 hybrid approach used elsewhere.

As an aside, Nvidia's enormous design win with Apple justifies speculation about Nvidia's future relationship with Intel. Intel might have protested Apple's spurning of Intel's notebook chip set by raising the cost of CPUs or, if you prefer, reducing Apple's loyalty incentives. Given that Apple's notebook pricing remained stable, I'd say that Intel elected not to fuss. Perhaps Intel already sees buying from Nvidia as keeping it in the family.

We ran our editorial about our fantasy notebooks under a banner proclaiming that they represent design perfection. It turns out that there is no cure for journalistic hubris like having one's predictions made real five years ahead of (my) schedule. For their design and the manufacturing technology invented to make them possible, Apple's new notebooks are as remarkable and ahead of their time as a flying car. Seriously now, how could I see that coming?

Posted by Tom Yager on October 15, 2008 03:00 AM

Dutch Design Week : Eindhoven

architecture.ehv [Expositie/presentatie]

Graduation show faculty of architecture, building and planning of eindhoven university of technology
Organisatie
Casa Vertigo / faculteit bouwkunde TU Eindhoven
www.casa.bwk.tue.nl
casa.vertigo@bwk.tue.nl
06-22945068 Locatie
Vertigo, Faculteit Bouwkunde TU/e
De Wielen 6
5612 AV Eindhoven
Toon op kaart
Omschrijving
Een tentoonstelling van de beste afstudeerprojecten van de faculteit Bouwkunde van de TU/e. Niet alleen architectuurprojecten, maar ook ontwerpen en onderzoek vanuit design systemen, constructief ontwerpen, bouwtechniek, bouwfysica, bouwmanagement en stedenbouw.
Bij de tentoonstelling verschijnt het boek ‘architecture.ehv’, uitgegeven door 010 publishers, Rotterdam. Behalve een documentatie van de tentoongestelde projecten bevat dit boek een aantal essays die gewijd zijn aan de zin en de praktijk van het ontwerpen, het onderzoek en de internationalisering van de bouwkundeopleiding.

Data en openingstijden
Za 18 okt 14:00 - 19:00
Zo 19 okt 11:00 - 18:00
Ma 20 okt 09:00 - 18:00
Di 21 okt 09:00 - 18:00
Wo 22 okt 09:00 - 18:00
Do 23 okt 09:00 - 18:00
Vr 24 okt 09:00 - 18:00
Za 25 okt 11:00 - 18:00
Zo 26 okt 11:00 - 18:00

Toegangsprijs
Gratis

RD 3 WHEEL VEHICLE CONCEPT

The main feature of this car is that it works mainly through articulation that not only gives direction but also makes it capable of compacted during high traffic and low speeds. Therefore, this vehicle remains low at the high speed and also displays information required during a trip by voice command by the driver.

US renewable energy plan 'shortsighted'

US renewable energy plan 'shortsighted'

Shortsighted and misguided. That's what a study by MIT researcher Michael Hogan makes of the aggressive and well-intentioned renewable energy goals set by 26 US states.

In the absence of a strong national plan on how to wean the country from fossil fuels, individual states have enacted their own renewable portfolio standards (RPS) that require electric utilities to obtain a certain percentage of their power from renewable sources by a certain date. For example, Colorado and New Mexico have both mandated that 20% of their electric supply should be renewables sourced by 2020.

But, until now, it seems nobody has examined these goals to see if they really offer the best solution.

The problem, Hogan argues in his recent master's thesis is that these short-term requirements promote terrestrial wind farms, a mature technology, at the exclusion of less mature technologies such as solar, offshore wind, and geothermal approaches.

By not encouraging such diverse energy sources, states are delaying the development of a wider portfolio of renewables that could provide greater and more stable power supplies in the long run.

"The short-term inducements are causing us to choose easy technology choices that may not be the best way to switch long-term to renewable energy," says Hogan's professor, Lawrence Susskind.

A key problem with current inducements is that goals are set for total renewable energy production over the course of a year, with no premium on when the energy is produced. Wind turbines might produce a lot of power overall, but their intermittent nature means coal power plants are still needed no matter how many turbines are installed.

A third of the US's C02 emissions come from its 620 coal-fired plants and unless they can be replaced by renewables, Hogan writes, "nothing else matters."

Stable base-load renewable energy is, of course, a holy grail that scores of engineers are working to develop.
Hogan's answer is to mandate that certain percentages of electricity are generated by specific types of renewables in different regions, such as offshore wind in the northeast where breezes are constant, and solar thermal with thermal storage in the sunnier southwest.

While I think he's right on in pointing out the error of current goals, I fear mandating certain technologies that still aren't proven could also backfire if they don't pan out.

Susskind, for his part, says its time for federal leadership to whip the US renewable policies into shape.

"26 states is laudable, but it should be all states, and it should be long term," he says.

Phil McKenna, New Scientist contributor

Parental controls spread to driving

Parental controls spread to driving
Ford has good news and bad news for teen drivers. On the plus side, the 2010 version of the Ford Focus will come with an extra set of keys specially geared towards adolescents.

But young drivers using those keys won't be able to take full advantage of the car's features - worried parents can use Ford's MyKey system to cap the car's maximum speed and limit the car stereo's volume when their children are in the driving seat.
The MyKey technology is adapted from the pre-existing SecuriLock passive anti-theft system. It identifies which set of keys are in the ignition and then choses between an 'adult' or 'teen' driving mode.

Inevitably, opinion polling reveals a generational divide in the new technology's popularity. Three-quarters of parents think it's a great idea but two-thirds of teens were appalled by the prospect of an imposed cap on their speed.

But when Ford pointed out that the new controls would likely encourage their parents to give them more driving freedom the number of disgruntled teenagers almost halved, which suggests Ford might be onto something here. MyKey is set to appear on other Ford models in future, the company says.

Colin Barras, online technology reporter

Charles Leadbeater

Charles Leadbeater

Charles Leadbeater is a leading authority on innovation and creativity. He has advised companies, cities and governments around the world on innovation strategy and drawn on that experience in writing his latest book We-think: the power of mass creativity, which charts the rise of mass, participative approaches to innovation from science and open source software, to computer games and political campaigning.

We-think, which is due to be published in 2007, is the latest in a string of acclaimed books: Living on Thin Air, a guide to living and working in the new economy; Up the Down Escalator, an attack on the culture of public pessimism accompanying globalisation and In Search of Work, published in the 1980's, which was one of the first books to predict the rise of more flexible and networked forms of employment.

In 2005 Charles was ranked by Accenture, the management consultancy, as one of the top management thinkers in the world. A past winner of the prestigious David Watt prize for journalism, Charles was profiled by the New York Times in 2004 for generating one of the best ideas of the year, the rise of the activist amateur, outlined in his report The Pro-Am Revolution.


As well as advising a wide range of organisations on innovation including the BBC, Vodafone, Microsoft, Ericsson, Channel Four Television and the Royal Shakespeare Company, Charles has been an ideas generator in his own right. As an associate editor of the Independent he helped Helen Fielding devise Bridget Jones's diary. He wrote the first British report on the rise of social entrepreneurship, which has since become a global movement.

Charles has worked extensively as a senior adviser to the governments over the past decade, advising the 10 Downing St policy unit, the Department for Trade and Industry and the European Commission on the rise of the knowledge driven economy and the Internet, as well as the government of Shanghai. He is an advisor to the Department for Education's Innovation Unit on future strategies for more networked and personalised approaches to learning and education. He is a co-founder of the public service design agency Participle.

A visiting senior fellow at the British National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts, he is also a longstanding senior research associate with the influential London think-tank Demos and a visiting fellow at Oxford University's Said Business School.

Charles spent ten years working for the Financial Times where he was Labour Editor, Industrial Editor and Tokyo Bureau Chief before becoming the paper's Features Editor. In 1994 he moved to the Independent as assistant editor in charge of features and became an independent author and advisor in 1996.

Charles's current research focuses on how mass, user driven innovation is reshaping organisations, with users increasingly co-creators of products and services. He is also exploring the emergence of China, India and Korea as sources of research and innovation, through a two-year, £350,000 research programme, the Atlas of Ideas, funded by the British government and a consortia of companies.



Video:
http://nl.youtube.com/results?search_query=charles+leadbeater&search_type=&aq=f

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=qiP79vYsfbo

BT picks fast fibre pilot sites

BT said the hardware would stay in place after the pilot
Residents of Muswell Hill, London and Whitchurch, South Glamorgan will be the first to try next generation broadband.
Exchanges in both areas are to become pilot sites where the fibre-based broadband will be tested.
Once the exchanges are upgraded home users should be able to go online at speeds in excess of 40 megabits per second (Mbps).
Up to 15,000 home and business customers in each area will get the chance to take part in the pilot.
Fast forward
The operational pilots will run fibre-optic cables to the street cabinets that connect homes and businesses to telephone exchanges.
A BT spokesman said the two sites were chosen because of their mix of customers and net providers in these areas as well as the make-up of the local communications network and geography.
"These two areas are perfect for our needs for the pilots," said the spokesman.
The pilots will begin in summer 2009. Prior to the start of the large scale trials BT's Openreach will run a small trial in early 2009 involving 30 homes connected to the Foxhall exchange in Kesgrave, Suffolk.
The pilots are being run by BT Openreach which looks after the so-called "first mile" of the communication network that links homes and office buildings to BT's core network.
The BT spokesman said it was proper to describe the installation of the equipment as a pilot as it would not remove the hardware once the pilot period ended.
Because of this, said the spokesman, it was not clear which broadband firms would be recruiting people to take part in the trial or the terms and conditions that would govern it.
Further pilots in new areas will be chosen towards the end of 2009 and the commercial roll out of the service is set to begin in 2010.
In July 2008, BT said it would spend £1.5bn installing fibre-optic cables to that would bring the high-speed broadband to about 40% of the UK population.
The pilot will test the technology Openreach has chosen and those taking part will be encouraged to use demanding web-based applications, such as high-definition movies and online gaming, simultaneously to see how the new system copes.
"We have no clear idea of the applications that are out there that people might need really high speed services for," said the spokesman.
In a separate trial BT is also running fibre to thousands of new homes being built at a large scale development under construction in Ebbsfleet, Kent. The technology being installed to these homes is expected to deliver speeds of about 100Mbps.

Innotown

Where great people tell exciting stories about change!

InnoTown is a truly unusual business conference for people who want to open up to the new opportunities that lie beyond the traditionally tried and tested. The aim of InnoTown is to move people's minds, both rationally and emotionally; to inspire and enhance creativity and innovation, to help motivate people to think new thoughts and dare to fail – to succeed.

The conference emphasises innovation, vision, inspiration, strategy, creativity, promotion and internationalisation. It creates good relations between people from different countries, trades, environments and professions. This results in stimulating new ideas and the developing, deepening and widening of existing knowledge and values.

InnoTown 08 will be the 8th conference in a row. Over 500 persons from apx. than 25 countries are expected to participate.
InnoTown is a door-opener to increased innovation. Behind the door the opportunities are waiting for you. Come to InnoTown and see!

Innotown YouTube:
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=wKJBHBuyKBU

UK Urged to fund climate project

UK urged to fund climate project

By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News, Glasgow


Sentinel-1: Astrium believes the UK position lost it the contract
The UK government has been urged to fund the next stage of a major European programme to monitor the effects of global climate change from space.
The trade body UKspace made the call ahead of a key ministerial meeting.
Britain entered Kopernikus, the world's biggest environmental monitoring project, at a quarter of the funding level preferred by industry.
UK companies are understood to have lost out on lucrative contracts as a result.
The programme will combine data from state-of-the-art satellites and hundreds of other sources to provide an accurate understanding of the land, oceans and atmosphere.

Most countries have put in more money than is required. It's only the UK that has been under-returned
John Auburn, UKspace
Short-changed
Data from the long-term monitoring project - originally named Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) - will inform policy-makers and help set the pace for climate change adaptation.
UKspace said £130m over nine years would be needed to ensure the UK played a significant role alongside its European partners.
Richard Peckham, one of UKspace's three chairmen, and business development director at EADS-Astrium in the UK, said: "This is a crucial programme. At the last ministerial [meeting], the UK didn't really play the sort of role we would have expected.

Kopernikus will use satellites to monitor the global environment
"Verbally, the UK has taken a lead on environment and climate. But when it came to the last ministerial, we stepped short of the mark."
Then, the UK contributed just £11m for the entire first segment, or phase, of Kopernikus (the new name for GMES). This amounted to 4.5% of UK gross domestic product (GDP); industry had expected Britain to participate at around 17%.
Sources told the BBC that officials within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which is leading the UK's participation, may not originally have recognised the programme's significance.
The European Space Agency's (Esa) rules of "juste retour" ensure the work which returns to a member state reflects the financial contribution they make to a programme.

Space race
Astrium UK, headquartered in Stevenage, is understood to have positioned itself as prime contractor to build the system's first satellite - called Sentinel-1. Because of the UK's low level of funding, Astrium lost the contract, worth 229m euros, to rival Thales Alenia Space.
Under the contracts, companies also build a second, replica satellite.
"This is part of a global initiative to look at what's happening to the Earth," said John Auburn, another chair of UKspace, and business development director at Vega Group.

When Envisat is retired, the Sentinel-5 precursor will ensure continuity
He added: "Hopefully the UK will go in at GDP level for the remainder of the programme, which is good for industry and academia.
"So far [the programme] is over-returned, so most countries have put in more money than is required. It's only the UK that has been under-returned."
But Colin Challen MP, chair of the all party parliamentary group on climate change, sounded a positive note.
Speaking at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Glasgow, he said: "I think the government will be supporting it fully. A decision will be made in just a few weeks' time.
"But I think it's a bit disturbing if we think we can in any way at all freeload on the science. I don't think that's the general approach in Britain."

Crunch time
Officials at Astrium said the company was now working to position itself to win contracts as part of the programme's second funding segment, worth around 1bn euros.
Key decisions on this part of the project will be made on 25 and 26 November, when European space ministers meet in The Hague, the Netherlands.
A key target for UK industry is the contract to build the Sentinel 5 pre-cursor satellite, which is crucial for monitoring global climate change. Continuity of data is considered vital in order for scientists to assess trends in global climate.
The Sentinel-5 precursor is designed to fill just such a gap in scientific observations.
"It's absolutely mandatory to have this mission to avoid a big gap between the data from the Envisat satellite, whose lifetime is due to run out in 2013 and Sentinel 5 'proper' which is due to be launched around 2019 or 2020," said Barbara Ghinelli, business development director at Astrium.
Mr Auburn said another aim at the upcoming ministerial was to cement the idea of a climate change centre as part of the Esa facility planned for Harwell in the UK.
Professor Alan O'Neill, director of the National Centre for Earth Observation, said: "Kopernikus has enormous potential to provide vital information on climate and environmental change.
He added: "[Britain] is a world leader in climate change policy, science, understanding and space technology. The Kopernikus programme together with the planned Esa facility in the UK and related ground data-processing systems will help UK leadership to be maintained."