CNO

  • 25 Feb
    Welcome post-normal era – We are prepared!

    Welcome post-normal era – We are prepared!

    This is the opening blog for the new forum, where emergent management paradigms and fresh ways of thinking and even revolutionary visions are presented and discussed. If you are responsible of opening up new ways of thinking for your company  or community, if you want to learn the use of new tools and inspiring facilitation methodologies – or if you just want to find inspiration for your every day activities, this is the right forum to visit regularly!

    We believe that in this interconnected global business world the competitive edge comes from understanding that:

    1)     the fundamental and useful information is flowing instead of being stocked somewhere

    2)     the most effective form of organization is a movement

    3)     the leading actors are individuals and communities

    4)     the driving force is passion

    5)     the competitive edge evolves from diversity

    6)     the  success comes from respecting serendipity

    7)     the sustainable work-life integration is the ultimate way to happiness

    Our own formula for success c=km2 has proved to be a great trailblazer and highlights our philosophy when digging into the challenges of our customers. We believe in networked business models, where CNOs (Collaborative Networked Organizations) are essential elements. The impact comes from the flexibility and higher motivation levels in a structure, where passion in many cases is the driving force. There are some Living Lab initiatives and other good cases of community involvement, but overall the importance of this issue is not widespread understood in the contemporary business world. With well organized community facilitation methodologies the companies and the regions can revitalize their talent pools and attract motivated people.

     The impact comes from the flexibility and higher motivation levels in a structure, where passion in many cases is the driving force.

    Knowledge alone is not useful, if the motivation on individual, community or company level is the limiting factor. Even the big institutions are focusing more on talent and shifting their focus from engagement to passion. This was a clear message at IBM Connect 2013 just few weeks ago. For the big conglomerates this might be the mission impossible, if they are not able to attract the surrounding communities into their business processes. The same applies for innovation intermediaries like science parks, incubators and regional development organizations. This blog will keep following actively all those various issues related to community building and facilitation. The importance of vision and leadership,  different types of communities and their life-cycle management, CNO issues, and various types of entrepreneurship will be discussed.

    Some people just follow their passion, the others have to be engaged.  Here is an insightful clip explaining the fact that even though engagement is vital, it can not be managed.

    The leading thinkers and advocates for the future solutions of business ecosystems and innovation environments – John Hagel and Stowe Boyd – will be some of the figures we will follow actively.  Both are enthusiastic, future oriented  and  have an ispiring touch when illustrating  the possibilities of the ”Pull society” – like John and his colleagues in Deloitte have named it  – or ”Post-normal” era – like Stowe likes to call this new business landscape we are entering.

    Pull society or post-normal era  – anyway, it reflects the fundamental shift in the ways of people’s thinking, how business is evolving,  how innovations are created, the ways we communicate, interact and get excited, the drivers we feel passionate of.

    Pull society or post- normal era – we could call it also the era of movements, the era of  passion, the era of community empowerment, the era of respecting serendipity. What ever the name, the time has come. Be prepared!

  • 25 Oct

    ECOLEAD, Joensuu Science Park

    Ilkka Kakko was acting as the Project Manager for Joensuu Science Park’s part in the project 2004-2008, first as a Manager at JSP but later 2007-08 finished the project based on commercial agreement between JSP and Karostech.  ECOLEAD was an ambitious 6th FramSaveework EU -research project (IP =Integrated Project) with the total budget of 15 M euros and 26 partners – universities, research units and industrial partners. JSP and especially its netWork Oasis department managed by Ilkka Kakko was a demonstration and research partner in the Professional Virtual Communities (PVC) area.

    ECOLEAD is acknowledged widely as the main achievement in the research discipline of  Collaborative Networked Organizations (CNOs). The methodologies and practices of CNOs were researched, developed, piloted.  Based on the results of the project Springer published three books:

    ”Network -Centric Collaboration and Supporting Networks”, edited by Luis M. Camarinha Matos & Hamideh Afsarmanesh & Martin Ollus, 2006

    ”Methods and Tools for Collaborative Networked Organizations”, edited by Luis M. Camarinha Matos & Hamideh Afsarmanesh & Martin Ollus, 2008

    ”Collaborative Networks: Reference Modelling” , by Luis M. Camarinha Matos & Hamideh Afsarmanesh, 2008

    The reference model ARCON and the methodologies and tools developed and piloted in ECOLEAD have been the theoretical basis for the development of our 3GSP (Third Generation Science Parks) – concept and have also given the building blocks for our approach towards the way we build innovation communities. The understanding of the virtual organizations and teams and especially the vital role of Virtual Organization Breeding Environments (VBEs) are useful in the creation of networked business ecosystems and can be utilized also when supporting cluster development in regions.

    The PVC and VBE models are further developed by Karostech and in the pipeline we have a new ”freelancers and coworkers in cloud” service, which is soon ready for the piloting phase.

  • 02 Apr

    Karostech Ltd as a key partner in a new ENPI project

    Karostech is participating in a new ENPI project “Open Innovation Service for Emerging Business –OpenINNO”. The other partners are the Association of Centers for Engineering and Automation (St. Petersburg), Saint-Petersburg State Polytechnical University, Committee of the Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade (City of St. Petersburg), Committee on IT and Communications (City of St. Petersburg), Lappeenranta University of Technology, Kouvola Innovation Ltd, Saint-Petersburg Interregional Resource Center, and Tahto Media Ltd.
    The Overall objective of the project is “to contribute to economical development of partners regions through fostering pre-incubating stage of innovation life-cycle by developing, piloting and testing the competitive open ecosystem for interregional cooperation with special focus on young entrepreneurs.” The Kick Off event of the two years project was held in St. Petersburg on 15th of March.
    Karostech’s areas of expertise in the project are the creation and implementation of “Oasis-like” environment in St. Petersburg and the creation and facilitation of CNO methodologies in the project operations.
  • 20 Mar

    Report on building innovation communities delivered

    Karostech has completed a challenging research task related to the investigation of innovation communities in the context of “Smart City” development. The report describing the taxonomy of innovation communities, explaining the use of CNO methodologies, analyzing six case studies of different types of innovation communities, and describing the main types of Smart Cities in the global scale, was delivered to the customer by the end of February.
    The outcomes of the report will be applied in Russia for regional development projects and initiatives. For Karostech the deal was an important step in deepening the expertise related to foundation and facilitation of innovation communities as well as the use of CNO methodologies in practice.