The Challenge

We are living through a new swing point in history, which began somewhere around 1970 with the coming together of a host of new realities (social and cultural, technological, economic, ecological, and political).

Some of the key drivers of change for this new era were the tremendous increase in global competition, the changing nature of competition, the explosion of new technologies (particularly information and communication technology) the emergence of global capital markets (made possible by the new information technologies) and dramatic changes in demographic patterns.

The arrival of this new economy has sparked a global, organizational revolution. Government policy-makers and business organizations around the world now find themselves needing to figure out the new rules of the game and quickly develop strategies and skills that will allow them to compete successfully. In essence, they need to get into shape to play the game.

The “playing field” is based on knowledge as a critical resource and is global in scale. The new economic challenges, however, are not simply faced by companies relying on international trade. They affect all firms in a country (and indeed throughout the world). More importantly, the challenges directly affect many other aspects of our lives. Our health care and education systems, social services, arts, and cultural activities all depend on the revenue obtained from the income of the market sector. Thus, organizations in all areas are being challenged to transform themselves to function successfully in this new knowledge economy.

Only nations (regions and cities) that continue to create new wealth can sustain high-quality physical, social, economic, political, and cultural environments.

The New Renaissance of the Knowledge Age
A thesaurus offers synonyms for “renaissance” such as regeneration, revitalization, rejuvenation, and reawakening. Antonyms (opposite meaning) include words such as failure, decline, decay, decadence, and deterioration.

The word “renaissance,” in modern times, has come to denote new energy, new thinking, and new initiatives in a wide variety of areas. The term is also used to refer to people who have the capacity to integrate important elements from a range of disciplines and from a variety of sectors (manufacturing, retail, high tech, health, sports, education, nonprofits, and the arts).

In the 1980s, prophetic voices began to speak of the need for “Renaissance Leaders”. (One of the first business leaders to speak in these terms was Walter Light of Northern Electric – now Nortel). Slowly leaders have been appearing who demonstrate many of the required new skills such as:

• Exhibiting insight (into globalization and the knowledge economy)
• Practising innovation (putting new knowledge into action in a manner that makes a difference in performance)
• Utilizing imagination as the foundation for innovation (the ability to apply out-of-the-box thinking in dealing with complex challenges)
• Nurturing collaboration and co-creation (helping diverse groups to work together efficiently and effectively to co-create new products and processes)
• Practising Systems Thinking (the ability to see the big picture and to integrate content, development concepts, implementation processes, learning, and leadership skills to utilize new information and communication technologies)
• Inspiring others (ability to excite others to function in this manner)
• Honouring diversity (acknowledging the critical need for diverse ideas and approaches to support breakthrough innovations)

Our Global Innovation Network is an attempt to help people get into the spirit of this kind of leadership. So we are looking to connect successful and aspiring innovators from a variety of sectors (business firms, non profits, government agencies). In searching globally for these modern day Renaissance leaders, we are posing intriguing questions such as: Where is the modern day Florence, Venice or Rome? Which communities (physical or virtual) are exhibiting the ability to function as rich enabling environments for the new renaissance leaders, for the breakthrough innovations they are trying to stimulate, and for the new style organizations they are creating? What is the nature of these new wealth creating organizations and what is the nature of the supporting organizations necessary to nurture growth in the knowledge economy?

This is our exciting challenge!