Roundtable: The Future of Innovation Journalism

It’s innovation time for journalism! Traditional news media are being challenged by innovative sources of news on the Internet, such as blogospheres, or citizen journalism. Traditional journalism struggles when covering innovation as a topic.

A roundtable discussion about the future of journalism with the
“Father of the Internet” Vint Cerf (Google /ICANN), Whitfield Diffie (SunMicrosystems), Amy Bernstein (Business 2.0), Lee Bruno (Red Herring), Dan Gillmor (Bayosphere), Anders Lotsson (Computer Sweden), Frances Mann-Craik (Tornado Insider, Addison Marketing), Harry McCracken (PC World), Tony Perkins (AlwayOn Network), Jan Sandred (Biotech Sweden), Richard Allan Horning (Tomlinson Zisko LLP), Charles Wessner (National Academies) and Stig Hagstrom (Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning). Producer and moderator: David Nordfors (Stanford / VINNOVA). Editor: Robert Emery Smith (Stanford), Recording Team Director: Mauricio Quijano (Stanford Video), Engineer: Gordon Gurley (Stanford Video), Cameras: Steve Schecter, Tamsin Orion, Mark Whelan (Stanford Video), PA: Austin Brizgys (Stanford Video), Text Editor: John Joss

Hardcopies of the DVD can be ordered from Amazon.com or VINNOVA
DVD, 120 minutes, All regions, UPC 837101387

Slovenian TV Runs Story on Innovation Journalism

News story from the Slovenian E+ TV show covering the First European Innovation Journalism Workshop at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, EU. The reportage is made by Maja Nemec and includes interviews with Marko Milosavljevic, Violeta Bulc and David Nordfors. It was broadcast by Kanal A on 20 Oct 2006.

Kick-Off for Innovation Journalism Initiative in the Balkan

Things are catching on pretty quickly in Europe now. The First European Workshop on Innovation Journalism was held at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, on Oct 18. The entrepreneur behind the initiative is Violeta Bulc and her company Vibacom, spearheading the introduction of Injo in Slovenia, which now is beginning to reverbarate also in other parts of the Balkans.

I was very happy to note that InJo attracts positive interest from journalists, companies, government and academia alike in Slovenia. They all seem open to the idea that this is a new playing field with something in it for each one of them as independent players.

The conference was opened by John Hagard, Swedish ambassador to Slovenia. Some of the key people in the conference (from left to right on the picture):
* Jan Sandred, VINNOVA (Sweden), fmr founding Editor of Biotech Sweden, the first documented case of targeting an innovation system as a readership, implementing InJo as a business model.
* Mateja Dermastia, economic strategist, managing director of Anteja ECG and fmr State Undersecretary in the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Slovenia.
* David Nordfors (i.e. me), Stanford and VINNOVA, introduced the concept of innovation journalism, continously working on developing the concept and community around it.
* Violeta Bulc, president Vibacom, opinionmaker spearheading InJo in the Balkans, writer, fmr journalist and telecom intrapreneur.
* Dusan Snoj, CEO of Vigeo Consulting, fmr editor-in-chief of Gospodarski Vestnik Publishing Group and of GV Group; fmr Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary Ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia to Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazahstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan and Turkmenistan.
* Marko Milosavljevič (not on the picture), Assistant professor in Journalism at the University of Ljubljana, regularly contributing and writing comments and analysis on media and journalism issues for leading Slovenian daily Delo, Razgledi, Novinar, Balkanis, Emzin, and Media Watch. Chairman of Expert commission for radio and television programmes at Slovenian Ministry of Culture.

Some of the key comments and observations from the workshop are listed here.

The workshop was organised by Vibacom in collaboration with VINNOVA, TIA - the Slovenian Technology Agency - DG Marta Svetina participated in the workshop discussion panel, the University of Ljubljana, Stanford. Media partner was Finance, the largest Slovenian business daily. The event was sponsored by thirteen Slovenian companies.

(News Release from VIBACOM)
http://www.vibacom.si/injoworkshop06/materials/pressENG.pdf

Independent Journalism Recognized as Key for Innovation Economy

Innovation Journalism is becoming a recognized concept in innovation policy circles.

It was in focus at Clusters2006 - The Ninth Annual Global Conference of The Competitiveness Institute. The three day conference in Lyon, France, dedicated an afternoon to a plenary session and a breakout session on the interplay of journalism in innovation ecosystems. The conference was attended by 425 delegates from 62 countries, mainly cluster and innovation professionals from government, academia and expert organisations.

The concept of Innovation Journalism was presented to the conference: the thoughts on its interaction in innovation ecosystems as an intermediating actor connecting innovation to public interest, suggesting some guidelines for innovation policy addressing independent journalism.

The bottom line:
1. For Democratic Society to focus on the Innovation Economy, Independent Journalism needs to cover it.
2. therefore, journalism is an independent actor in innovation systems.
3. therefore, it's a good idea to support development of independent innovation journalism when working on developing innovative business clusters.

The talk was followed by a panel:

Jan Sandred, fmr InJo Fellow and founding editor of Biotech Sweden - now with VINNOVA, explained the facts of life of journalism, and how the case of Biotech Sweden showed that innovation journalism is not only a way of covering clusters and innovation systems, but mainly a good business model for news publishing, which is key, as journalism is a business and must be loyal to the readership - not the sources. Journalism must always be independent and never neutral, he stressed.


Per Eriksson, founding DG of VINNOVA - the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems, and first in the world to support the launch of an innovation journalism program, pointed out the importance of not compromising journalistic integrity. When VINNOVA supports researchers, there should be no involvement in or bias of the research done. The situation is no different for journalists, Eriksson said, there must be no VINNOVA involvement in or bias of stories produced by journalists involved in the innovation journalism programs. The PR department is therefore not permitted to participate in the program activities.

Marta Svetina, founding DG of TIA, the National Slovenian Technology Agency, and Arthur Bayhan, founding Director of The Competitiveness Support Fund in Pakistan, described their national initiatives for supporting the development of independent innovation journalism.


Seppo Sisätto, democracy and media pioneer who founded the first commercial news radio station in Finland after the fall of communism, presented the Finnish national innovation journalism initiative.

Willi Rütten, Director of the European Journalism Center EJC, announced that EJC has selected innovation journalism as a focus area, regardless if there is funding available or not at the present time.


The session was chaired by Antoni Subira, Professor of Financial Management at the IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain, former Minister of Industry in Catalonia, among the first to implement cluster theory for building competitiveness.

After the plenary session I had the pleasure of chairing a breakout session, where project leaders from countries implementing innovation journalism initiatives presented plans and results: Jan Sandred and I from Sweden, Seppo Sisättö from Finland, Amir Jahangir from Pakistan, Patricia Valdenebro from the Basque country in Spain, and Willi Rütten from the EJC.

More on the conference blog of Clusters 2006.

YLE Broadcast Corporation Research Ex-Director Wiio: Finland Needs More InJo Courses

The Report on "Media in renewable society. The changing rules of the media" issued by the Finnish National Fund for Research and Development (Sitra) includes recommendations for better understanding of innovation ecosystems and promotes the role of media. It highlights the Finnish innovation journalism initiative. The report is made by ex research director of Finnish Broadcasting Corporation (YLE) Juhani Wiio.

"Short innovation journalism courses for media professionals have been organized by the University of Tampere. The course aims to educate journalists in order that the participants will have better than average knowledge on developments in innovation society. Moreover, it is supposed that during the course the journalist are able to comprehend the meanings of different social openings and initiatives. The results of the courses, so far, have been promising. However, one short innovation journalism course is not enough. The need for this kind of experience is far greater in media. Therefore, it is proposed that the central actors of innovation systems should support the continuation of the innovation journalism
education". (p. 82)

Here is the reference and a link for downloading the report:
Wiio, Juhani. 2006. Media uudistuvassa yhteiskunnassa. Median muuttuvat pelisäännöt. (Media in renewable society. The changing rules of the media) Sitra Report 65. Sitra, Helsinki. (p. 79-83)
http://www.sitra.fi/julkaisut/Raportti65.pdf?download=Lataa+pdf

Innovation Journalism Gets Academic Research Funding

VINNOVA is funding a literature study on published research that is relevant for understanding innovation journalism and its role in innovation ecosystems. This is the first study of its kind, providing a base of academic research that research on innovation journalism can build upon. So now there are three fields of activities supporting the development of the concept and community of Innovation Journalism: The development of a professional community, the development of an academic community, and the development of a public policy community.

Here is the full news flash ( available in PDF in the innovation journalism archive):

How does journalism link innovation with the public interest? How do innovation ecosystems engage journalists? These questions are at the heart of a research initiative recently funded by VINNOVA, the Swedish Government Agency for Innovation Systems. The project will set the agenda for an international research workshop scheduled for February 2007 at Stanford University.

The academic research study is led by Professor Marc Ventresca of Oxford University (PI, coordinator) and Dr. David Nordfors at Stanford University and VINNOVA (Program Director), with Dr. Turo Uskali from the University of Jyväskylä, visiting scholar in innovation journalism at Stanford, and Dr. Antti Ainamo at the Helsinki School of Business.

The group of researchers standing behind the mission, which includes faculty and expert practitioners from leading U.S. and European universities, convened in April 2006 for a workshop hosted by the Innovation Journalism program run by Stanford and VINNOVA. They recently co-published an essay identifying ‘Innovation Journalism’ as a useful theme through which to explore the interplay of journalism in innovation ecosystems.

Nordfors noted, ‘While academic work on innovation involving journalism has been done, journalism’s role in innovation ecosystems remains to be established as a research theme within the academic community.’

Uskali added: ”Few studies have focused on how journalists contribute to the innovation process and how public interests engage innovation.’ No distinct ‘beat’ includes innovation, for example.”

According to Ainamo: ”We want to understand how journalists cover innovation processes and innovation ecosystems, the incentives that drive innovation journalism and how news organizations may be organized to cover the innovation process more effectively.”

Ventresca, a strategy professor and cultural sociologist, noted: ”Recent studies of innovation and entrepreneurship reveal complex social and institutional ecosystems that shape the way in which inventions become innovations, transforming industry landscapes—indeed entire societies. We know too little about social and political intermediaries of all sorts in processes of technological and social innovation.”

VINNOVA will fund a focused literature review of existing studies in strategy and organization studies, entrepreneurship and innovation, in journalism as a profession and the social organization of news media. This project will provide a necessary base for designing relevant research to develop the research agenda around Innovation Journalism and the Role of Journalism in Innovation Ecosystems.

The European Journalism Centre InJo Workshop

Willi Rütten, Director of EJC - European Journalism Center, on the concept of Innnovation Journalism: It will change the way journalism education is organized in the long run.

The European Journalism Centre (EJC) arranged an Innovation Journalism workshop in Amsterdam 29 September 2006 at the Picnic 06 crossmediaweek conference. I was a speaker at this event together with Daniel Sokolov, IT Journalist, Heise Online; Prof. Dr. Gundolf S. Freyermuth, International Film School, Cologne, and Raymond Frenken, Editor-in-Chief & Managing Director of EUX.TV. It was an excellent discussion and I am looking forward to working more with the EJC!

The European Journalism Centre (EJC) is an independent, international, non-profit institute for further training of journalists and media professionals, operating across the EU, based in Maastricht.

Willi was appointed Director of the EJC in March 2006. He is a seasoned journalist, with long experience as a reporter and producer in German public and private broadcasting (ARD, RTL-Group), as well as in journalism education. Before joining the European Journalism Centre he was the head of school for "digital television" at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzburg/ Austria. Willi has a background in research, where he was working on a Ph.D. in metaphors before he chose to dedicate himself to practicing journalism.

It strikes me that research on metaphors offers a very interesting angle on innovation journalism. Metaphors are an important starting point for forming new concepts, and journalism is a power player in creating the metaphors that will shape the public perception of an innovation, and the language around innovations in general.

Fourth Round for Swedish InJo Fellowships

If you are a Swedish journalist or know any Swedish journalists who might be interested in the Innovation Journalism Fellowship program, now is the time.

VINNOVA has officially announced it's call for applicants for the fourth round of the Innovation Journalism Fellowship Program (click here to apply). Last application day is October 13. Applicants must be Swedish residents.

The selected participants will participate at two workshops and the Fourth Conference on Innovation Journalism at Stanford, and be hosted by leading newsrooms for 4-6 months this spring and summer, where they will be covering innovation issues.

Those who are interested in knowing more about it are welcome to get in touch with me or any one of the previous fellows. (They are listed on the "about" page on the innovation journalism web site.)

The program call will be announced in the Swedish journalism newspaper Journalisten on Sep 18. You can download the ad (in Swedish) in PDF here: annons-journalisten.pdf

Good Thoughts and Words

SRI International President and CEO Curtis Carlson and co-author Bill Wilmot have good things to say about InJo in their new book Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want. In the section "Innovation in the Media" they don't take any prisoners when pointing out the need for innovation journalism, praising our InJo program at Stanford:

"Over the next decade, the mainstream media will spend a great deal of time talking and writing about the consequences of our lack of competitiveness and its impact on bid companies. They will be concerned when Chinese firms buy big United States Companies, when software jobs move to India, and when protectionism becomes a political issue. But these stories, absent the bigger context of innovation and competitiveness, represent a disservice to their readers and listeners. The action is not just with the larger companies, which, as we discussed in Chapter 2, are finding it increasingly difficult to survive, but rather at the grassroots level, where new company formation through innovation thrives. The mainstream media are basically missing the story. Perhaps each media-outlet science and technology editor can change his or her job description to "Science, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Editor".

More generally, the mainstream media can increase their active role in helping communicate the challenges, opportunities and excitement of innovation and entrepreneurship in our time. This could help stimulate a productive discussion about how the United States needs to improve its schools, tax policies, government regulations, and research agencies. They too could use innovation best practices as a ruler to measure the United States' performance against that of others. Ultimately, they could help promote and examplify the skills and attitudes needed to thrive in the exponential economy. For example, maybe he creative staffs of the major television networks could make this the ultimate 'survivor' show.

One bright spot is a program at Stanford University called Innovation Journalism. It is not about innovation in journalism but, rather, it is a journalism program about innovation. The program is led by David Nordfors with the goal of advancing the public debate about this critically important topic. He has assembled journalists and students from many countries to be part of the program, who then become innovation-enlightened journalists at major publications around the world."

The book, which has received a positive review by Business Week, describes how a disciplined approach to innovation—the successful creation and delivery of a new or improved product or service—will provide value for customers and organizations alike and offers a systematic way to make innovation practical and sustainable for any enterprise. Carlson is an innovation guru with a lot of personal experience. Before heading SRI International he started and led the team that set the US standard for HDTV, for which his team shared an Emmy.

Swedish Innovation Journalism Program Growing Up

The Swedish Innovation Journalism program has matured, and the Director General of VINNOVA, Dr Per Eriksson, has now decided to endorse it as a part of regular Swedish innovation policy. I will be shaping the long term program together with division directors at VINNOVA as from this autumn.

Per Eriksson was the first policy maker in the world to support the concept of Innovation Journalism. I started the initial Innovation Journalism program as a pilot directly under him in 2003.

Slovenia's First InJo Projects - Press Conference

The Director General of the National Slovenian Technology Agency (TIA), Dr. Marta Svetina, has decided to support three specific projects as a start of the "Innovation Journalism program in Slovenia". I have received an inspiring letter from Dr. Svetina, where she states her hopes and intentions to support the development of independent innovation journalism, and to strengthen the interaction between Slovenia and the program at Stanford. I am looking forward to it.

The projects were announced at a press conference in Ljubljana today, writes Violeta Bulc on her Slovenian Innovation Journalism Blog. Violeta is the entrepreneur behind the InJo push in Slovenia. The projects:

1. The prize contest “The Best Innovation Journalism Media Contribution in 2006”,
2. “Innovative Local Community (Pilot Project in Slovenia)”
3. “First European Workshop on Innovation Journalism”, 18th October 2006 in Ljubljana.

Violeta reports that "..more or less all national and local media were present at the press conference. 11 reporters and their teams were from the national TV station, local TV stations, national radio, 2 national newspapers…"

InJo Workshop at PICNIC Conference, Amsterdam Sep 29

The European Journalism Center will be hosting a workshop on Innovation Journalism at the PICNIC Conference in Amsterdam. I will be speaking at the event.

Workshop: Innovation Journalism
Time: 9:00- 13:00
Event Description: Workshop for journalists on how to cover innovation and identify and report on key issues in the innovation systems, from main actors to their agendas and their interactions with each other.
Partner: European Journalism Centre
Contact: Emma Elliott
Email: Elliott@ejc.nl
Telephone: +31 43 325 4030