INNOBALEARS

Due to the project I am working on now, I was looking for innovation promotion initiatives in several regions, that might be considered of reference for some islands like ours, the Balearic Islands. The reference regions chosen were Madrid and Catalunya (as we work in the Spanish framework), Ireland (as it happens to be the country of reference in Europe in what has to do with tech development) and Hawaii islands (with a population, islands distribution and business profile quite similar to Balearic Islands). The most remarkable characteristics detected in our little "benchmarking" analysis were: - The commercial orientation of all public policies in the anglosaxon regions analysed. All web information is focused on selling their technological resources - The fact that madri+d is a great source of information based on the visibility acquired by the agent that sends its information to the Portal. But the fact that they put their information in the portal doesn't mean that ...

Many people think that innovating only has to do with inspiration, creativity and good ideas. But Innovation has a lot more to do with hard work, systematization, and ability to implement the good ideas that anyone can have. With this in mind, we can define and implement in almost any organization an innovation management process, that identifies subprocesses that involve all the organization staff. The first subprocess of innovation mamagement process is Current situation analysis, this is, try to think about the organization innovation level within its sector (this would be the "innovation degree") and its attitude towards innovation (this would be the "innovation capacity"). Once this thinking process has started, it is time to identify and priorityze the innovation projects that will improve the company situation in innovation degree and capacity. The third step in this process is to find ways for project financing, and this ways can go through public funds, ri...

As far as I have experienced, Innovation cannot be successful without being structured as a Project. Companies can develop their day-to-day activities in a fuctional way, this is, each department just doing their job and a manager that integrates the activity of all these departments. But innovation projects (which are, as I already commented in some other article, the ones that are going to guarantee the market position of the company in a long-term basis)must be structured as projects. A project can be defined as a group of activities developed in a concrete period of time using several resources and oriented to get determined objectives and results. There is a lot of Project Management bibliography, but when we talk about small projects there are three phases one has to consider: DEFINITION AND PLANNING PHASE, oriented to clearly define the objectives of the project and the results expected (which are not usually the same: a project can be "develop a new service", and resu...

Back from a long vacation period now it's time to update last InnoBalears information, and this includes gaining the Ateneu de Maó price on tourism research last july. The price will be lended by September, but maybe here we can make a few comments on the research analysis performed and its main conclusions. Minorca is a flat island in the Mediterranean Sea that forms part of the Balearic Islands, known in Europe by its sun&beach offer for tourists. This island has some particularities that have conditioned its touristic evolution comparing to the other more popular balearic islands: Majorca and Ibiza, but suffers the effects of seasonality in the same way as the other islands. The study was about seasonality in Minorca island, and the most important conclusions of the study were: - Certanly there is seasonality in Minorca Island, concentrated in the 6 months between April and October -The tourism coming from Spain is definitely important in the low season, as most tourists com...

Lately I've had some meetings where a well-situated bussiness man asked me what is really Innovation and how could we talk about Innovation in a tangible way. Innovation is a process. Innovation is an attitude. To make it tangible, let's talk about the process. The Innovation process starts with a diagnosis of current situation, any bussiness manager can do this (and does it systematically) on his or her business, this is, staying aware on what happens around my company, how do my competitors move, what techology can make my bussiness easier. To systematyze this process one can subscribe to a good periodical review on the sector, assist to determined events, listen to any provider that comes up with new ideas, support consultants pressure to buy the new bussiness aplication (and buy it if it is really worthy), etc. Next step is to develop once a year (at least), and according with the analysis performed, a list of innovation projects that could make sense for my company, and ch...

As most people know, Spain has traditionally been the third touristic destination in the world (it was the second last year) after USA and France, which theoretically implies certain industry knowledge ready to be exported in our knowledge society, contributing to the Europe of Knowledge development. Why is this not (very) true? There are several reasons why Spain is not exporting its knowledge on tourism as other countries in Europe are doing with their knowledge in industrial sectors, i. e.: Knowledge in tourism is not patentable as it is in industrial sectors, you can't protect neither license effectively most of the innovations that might enter the sector New products in tourism are very easily copied by competitors, unless they are supported by a new technology industrially protected (that belongs to the company that has launched the new product, quite a big barrier) It is quite difficult to get information from R+D processes in Tourism, as R+D is not systematized as it is in ...

On September 18-19, 2003 took place in Lugano, Switzerland, the most interesting conference on Innovation and Tourism I found out till now. I found it through Nathan Rosenberg, one of these American gurus on innovation research that has these details that I love, like answering someone they've never heard about that asks for innovation policies on tourism. Though the content includes more or less expectable conclusions, next papers were specially interesting for me: Explanation of the link between innovation and economic growth, by Rosenberg, also in touristic sectors Point of view by Xavier Décelle (Paris), where he outlines specific features and focus on innovation in tourism Quite interesting explanation of the link between innovation and product improvement by Weiermair (Innsbruck) Presentation of several cases of innovation policy definition or application in Australia, France, Korea and Malta You can find more information and the conference papers if you type "OECD innov...

Basing on a comment heard from one of the most important investigators in Spain I discovered Rolf Jensen and his Dream Society. The comment was a question: how are the touristic sectors innovating? Traditionally, in industrial sectors, innovation is the result of more or less clever ideas perfectioned by hours of problem solving. It's about things, so it's more or less easy: just a matter of time. What happens in touristic sectors? The type of product we have is about people's feelings, their emotions, so it is not a matter of time any more, it is about creating new emotions, at that precise moment, through not so direct means (no mahines, no screw-drivers, no computers neither schemas, only people interacting at last). I read something about Dream Society and my friend Bel Llodrà gave me the reference on Rolf Jensen ( www.dreamcompany.dk ), the ideologist. I thought I had discovered the panazea of what I had thought till that moment, the maximum component. I read the artic...

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Integration between Innovation and Strategy There are only a few tools that European Companies have in order to compete with their competitors in countries with much lower costs. This is why innovation becomes the tool to keep on being leaders and defining trends in a sector, even if costs are higher: the customer is ready to pay the cost of innovation. In this situation, European Companies define the trends in the development of the sector and become, more than producers of products, knowledge exporters. To face the challenge of integrating innovation in corporate strategy InnoBalears proposes: - Innovation policy definition (contracting, partnership, licence purchasing, patent protection) and providers research - Design and implementation of competitive intelligence systems (state of the art analysis, monitoring, prospective, SWOT analysis) - IT strategy definition - Corporate Strategy Definition Innovation Planning To avoid coming to a standstill, organizations need to know their cu...

The Company InnoBalears is born in 2005 with the mision of “making Innovation the key success factor for competitiveness within organizations, promoting experience interchanges at international level and developing new innovation models in industrial and touristic sectors”. In the more and more demanding and competitive situation that face the enterprises nowadays, the organizations need not only to manage their day-to-day activities, but also they need to include in their routine the constant research of a difference that will add value to their customers: it is not enough any more to perform excellent, there is a need to constantly search how to improve it. Innovation is not an option any more, and not to understand innovation challenge implies today the standstill of the company and, in a matter of time, its extinction. InnoBalears proposes a wide variety of profesional services offered by qualified consultants with experience in private and public organizations that is going to fac...