An Innovation Salon in Action

Earlier this week, Northwestern University’s Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems [NICO] hosted the 2006 Complexity in Action Conference entitled ‘Creating a FUEL BED for Innovation: Providing a Structure for Self-Assembly and Business Value Emergence.’ It certainly provided me with interesting ideas around how to incorporate complexity science and network science into my role as a retained executive search consultant, such as

• How to apply concepts and ideas from other disciplines [i.e., supply chain, biology] to improve my capabilities
• How to think about and more effectively use the three key components of a network [nodes, links, and structure & dynamics] to find candidates
• How to develop the ‘right’ questions to more effectively assess a company’s culture and potential candidates.

Cheers to NICO and CANet for creating an innovation salon. More key findings to come.