City and local government authorities can be more innovative in the way they work, share data and stimulate local innovation. Characteristics of innovative local governments While there is no single pathway to success, there are characteristics that high-performing city and local governments share: First, innovative city and local government authorities make sure that very different…
Making places for innovation; lessons from Mexico City
How local governments can support social and innovation through collaboration. While the national buzz around innovation in Australia appears to have somewhat subsided, there is growing evidence of the role local actors can play in stimulating innovation. Local innovation ecosystems nurture private and public innovation. National policy frameworks are important, but state and local initiatives…
The enabling city: places of social innovation
“Social innovation thrives on the ideas and efforts of social entrepreneurs and creative individuals whose socially conscious work contributes to environmentalism in a variety of ways”, writes Chiara Camponeschi in her 2010 e-book, The Enabling City; Place-Based Creative Problem-Solving and the Power of the Everyday. Here, the sources of innovation are found in “the most unlikely (according to some)…
The Kafka Brigade and the "strangling and depersonalising effect of bureaucracy"
Franz Kafka wrote about the strangling and depersonalising effect of bureaucracy. The Kafka Brigade reminds us that people using services have a lot to say about improving them – if only we would listen. Kafka Brigade is an independent, non-profit action research team, comprising a network of action researchers from Amsterdam and the Hague (NL),…
MindLab –– a platform for co-creating better ideas.
Here’s a Danish initiative designed to promote innovation within government while breaking down government silos. MindLab is a cross-ministerial innovation unit which involves citizens and businesses in creating new solutions for society – “a neutral zone for inspiring creativity, innovation and collaboration”. MindLab works with civil servants of three Danish ministries: Ministry of Business and Growth Ministry…