Interview in Att:ention

The Swedish magazine "Att:ention" published an interview with me on Innovation Journalism July 2006. The piece is written by Johan Jörgensen and Olle Corneer. Although a bit dated, I am posting it to the blog in order to make it available for reference. Att:ention is a monthly magazine made by Veckans Affärer, published by Bonniers Publishing house. Veckans Affärer is the largest Swedish business weekly.

Here is a PDF copy of the interview in the paper magazine: Attention%20interview.pdf

Translation in English:

The Visionary Modernizes Journalism
David Nordfors / The Researcher / Lives in: Palo Alto / Occupation: Runs a program in innovation journalism at the elite university Stanford in California / Background: Has done research in molecular quantum physics at Uppsala University [in Sweden]. Played keyboards in the rock band N-Liners and shared debut LP with Lustans Lakejer, Kaj Martin & Stick and others.

“It is innovation that is driving the economic growth today. The main reason for increased societal wealth is no longer that more people work more, or that machines are purchased in order to do more of the same work in shorter time. The improvements come instead from new ways for people to be productive, or that they produce new and more valuable things.
Innovation is not the same thing as invention. An invention can be a contraption in a cellar, known by nobody else than the inventor. Inventions can be made by individuals. An innovation always happens in a community. Something that happens in a community, something that is important for the community – that makes news.
My director general [at VINNOVA] Per Eriksson bought the idea and I started to work on a program to develop journalism as a key actor in innovation systems. Today we have collaboration with editors of many news rooms, spanning from Wall Street Journal and Fortune to Technology Review and Science.
I was myself a journalist for some years at the beginning of the 90s and had probably continued, if not I had been offered in February 1995 to take part in setting up the Knowledge Foundation [in Swedish: KK-stiftelsen / transl.] that, among other things, took care of the so called “IT Billion” [the Knowledge Foundation was in charge of spending more than one billion crowns - approx 135 million USD – on spreading the use of IT in Sweden / transl.]
After more than ten years pause as quantum physicist it is fun to be researcher again, although in a different topic.” (ATT)

The First Slovenian Innovation Journalism Award

The first award for Slovenian Innovation Journalism will be handed out at the regional conference on Innovation Journalism in Slovenia on June 14. Nataša Koražija from Manager Magazine is the winner in the main category, "the best journalistic contribution on innovations in Slovenian media in 2006". She will receive support to participate in the 5th Conference on innovation Journalism at Stanford University, California, USA in 2008 . The prize is sponsored by TIA, the National Slovenian Technology Agency.

Vesna Petkovšek from Gorenje gets the recognition for the "best contribution on innovations within Slovenian company magazines".

The following journalists will also receive recognitions for good work: Marjana Dremelj, Podjetnik; Primož Kaučič, Podjetnik; Sara Sonja Lunder, IRT3000; Matej Peternelj, Profit;
Samo Kranjec, Finance.

The awards are organized by Vibacom, headed by Slovenian entrepreneur Violeta Bulc, who has spearheaded the Slovenian Innovation Journalism initiative.

More information about the Slovenian awards here.

NDTV Profit (India) Interview

When visiting the CII/NAS First Global Summit on Innovation in India in the end of March NDTV Profit ran an interview with me.

NDTV is India's first and largest private producer of current affairs, sports and entertainment television. NDTV Profit, a 24-hour business plus channel, is India’s number one business news channel. For more information: www.ndtv.com

IRT3000 Story on Injo

The Slovenian magazine IRT3000 recently published an interview with me on innovation journalism. Here is a translation in English (does not include the introduction part).

A pdf with the IRT3000 story is available for download:
IRT3000%20interview%202007.pdf

LisaCast Featuring Injo

Lisa Padilla interviewed Injo Fellowship Alumni Thomas Frostberg, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Rapidus, on Innovation Journalism. The interview is available here.

A short presentation from Lisa about Lisacast:

I wanted to tell you about this week's show on Lisacast.com. Lisacast is the Internet radio show I began after recently joinging BlogTalkRadio. My show is broadcast live and then archived for download. It covers media, communication and technology. I interview interesting people from all around the world, take listener calls and questions and usually post follow up information on the web site. If my show airs at a crazy hour for your timezone, that's ok, you can download it later.

European Regional Conference on Innovation Journalism - Ljubljana 14-15 June 2007

The European Regional Conference on Innovation Journalism »Stanford after Stanford 2007« will be held on June 14-15th at the faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, European Union. The conference is supported by eleven Slovenian news outlets, including the major business and technology publications, and is presenting speakers from news media, universities, and the innovation ecosystem. I have been given the honor of adressing the opening session.

The aim of the conference is to deepen the understanding of new dimensions of innovation ecosystems empowered by the concept of Innovation Journalism at local, regional and global level.

The conference will present the first ever award for the best InJo contribution in Slovenian media.

The European commissioner for Research and Development, Janez Potočnik, is scheduled to come to the conference to present his perspectives on innovation in the European Union, together with his views on how independent news media play a part of the innovation economy.

The conference web site is here: http://www.innovationjournalism.si/en/safters07

Hope to see you in Ljubljana!

The First Finnish Innovation Journalism Award

Finjo - the Finnish Society for Innovation Journalism - granted the first Finnish Award of Innovation Journalism, called Innovaatiokide 2007 (Innovation Crystal 2007) to Sami Suojanen, a business reporter for the daily newspaper Aamulehti. The award winning ceremony took place during the Media Fair in Helsinki.

The winner was chosen out of more than one hundred journalistic articles by Mika Mannermaa, an eminent Finnish future researcher. The winning article Puhdasta valoa (Pure light) discussed the future prospects of the Finnish laser industry and presented a number of promising laser technology start-ups operating in Tampere region.

The Innovation Crystal award was accompanied by a cheque of euros 2500.

Visit by Danish DR News Management

The News management team of DR, the public service Danish Broadcasting Corporation, visited the innovation journalism program at Stanford for discussions yesterday. Under the leadership of the charismatic new DR news chief Ulrik Haagerup, the management group is looking together with SRI International's Discipline of Innovation team at ways to introduce a culture of innovation in the Danish news. DR has put their bets on Haagerup to bring the Danish public service news into the new age.

Haagerup is one of those people who adds color to a place. At the age of 27 he received the Cavling Prize, the most prestigious Danish journalism award, and four year later he was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Jyllands-Posten, one of the major Danish dailys. (Jyllands-Posten acclaimed world fame recently for the" "Mohammed Cartoon" controversy. Haagerup was no longer at the helm when it happened). In 2002 he was appointed Editor-in-Chief for Nordjyske Medier, where he introduced multimedial journalism.

Apart from a previous track record of driving innovation in news rooms, Haagerup is the author of a book on innovation (sorry folks, only in Danish), which has been published in several editions. The book points out that knowledge is not enough, it has to be introduced in society as well to be valuable. The "knowledge society" paradigm needs to be substituted by the "innovation society".

What will happen at DR News is not public knowledge yet, but it seems like a safe bet that innovation will be a key word.

Sunday Excursion with the Fellows

Injo Fellows excursion Apr 29 2007

Here are some pictures from yesterday's excursion to San Gregorio State Beach with the injo fellows located in the Bay Area.

EJC and Amsterdam Maastricht Summer University Runs INJO Seminar

The European Journalism Center (EJC) and the Amsterdam Maastricht Summer University will be running a three-day seminar on innovation journalism on July 25-27. I'll be going there - hope to see you in Maastricht, too!

The dynamic director of EJC, Willi Rütten, has selected innovation journalism as one of the themes for the EJC, so more things will be happening before long.

This is what the EJC writes about the summer seminar on their website :

The European Journalism Centre, in association with the Amsterdam-Maastricht Summer University (AMSU), will organize on July 25 - July 27 the seminar “Innovation Journalism: Detecting Weak Signals”. The seminar will be held in the main office of the European Journalism Centre in Maastricht, in the south of the Netherlands.

David Nordfors, who has been developing the concept of Innovation Journalism at Stanford University, will hold the keynote speech on the ideas behind “Injo”. During three days the participants will discuss various topics related to innovation and innovation ecosystems in Europe. The seminar will provide a close look into the winners and losers in the innovation space (Apple vs. Sony, Skype vs. Telcos) and discuss innovation developments in the (soon to be) integrated newsrooms (e.g.: Workflow and convergence issues when integrating print/online/audio/video etc.).

The seminar is of interest to journalists, journalism students and other media professionals who are covering innovation within traditional newsrooms, or work as freelance “tech writers”. At the same time, it targets PR experts and business developers within innovation driven companies and also scholars in media and communication studies.

For more informations and to apply for this seminar, visit http://www.amsu.edu/courses/MEDIA-1/.

IANS: "Indian news industry should innovate to survive competition: Media expert"

Here is a news clip today from India:

By Nayanima Basu, Indo-Asian News Service
New Delhi, April 15 (IANS)

The Indian news industry needs to innovate constantly in order to survive global competition and cater to the changing needs of readers and viewers, says David Nordfors, a senior research scholar at Stanford University's Centre for Innovations in Learning.

Nordfors, who was in India to hold extensive seminars and discussions on 'Innovation Journalism', coined the concept in 2003. He is an adviser to the governments of US, Europe and Asia on the role of journalism in the economy and its application in public innovation policy.

"The Indian news industry needs to embrace innovation right now as it has the resources to take the lead in developing new markets and can be an authoritative source of knowledge for the whole world," Nordfors told IANS in an interview during his visit.

"If the Indian news industry chooses to lean back and not become innovative, it will fall behind, and others will tell the story of India to the rest of the world. The choice is with India and I believe it can be more competitive at innovation than China, who are going for innovation too," said Nordfors, who is also a writer and columnist with a leading Swedish IT magazine.

According to him, the Indian media, which grew at 20 percent in 2006, is held in high esteem in the world for its content and analytical ability. But in order to sustain the credibility the industry has to shift its focus from quintessential reporting to something new so as to take a lead in the developing markets.

"Don't lean back and focus only on traditional news on paper. This will work fine for some years, but it is a fool's paradise," Nordfors said.

He also said India should learn from the failure of the media industry in Western countries which did not shift its focus from the traditional mode of newspaper reporting and hence reached a point of saturation.

"Everywhere in the Western world, the news industry is being hammered because they hung on to paper for too long. Now they can hardly afford to develop the products they need for securing their future because they are too busy surviving," he averred.

Adding that the Indian news industry should try and find newer ways to innovate, Nordfors said: "The Indian news media should look into ways of publishing news to cell phones, personal computers for ordinary people. This way you (Indian media) can reach incredibly large markets, also outside India."

Nordfors, who as a journalist initiated and headed the first symposium on the Internet that was held by Swedish Parliament, said: "The newsrooms need to be reorganised, and the newsbeat structures need to be looked over. Develop expertise in reporting on innovation. It is the big thing in all industries today.

"It is not about business or tech or politics, it is about business and tech and politics. The journalist needs to combine technology, business and politics in order to get the bigger picture."


Indo-Asian News Service

Injo at Global Innovation Summit in India

Innovation Journalism was on the agenda when the 1st Global Innovation Summit in India was arranged by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in collaboration with Dr. Charles Wessner of the US National Academy of Science (NAS).

The summit was headed by the CII chairman Dr. Surinder Kapur, and featured many of the top innovation leaders in India, representing industry, academia as well as government. I had the pleasure of being an invited speaker together with Prof. Clayton Christensen, who led a workshop on disruptive innovation.

Christensen's presented his ideas on how producers of low-cost innovations that turn large groups of non-consumers into consumers can pull the rug from beneath the incumbents. One example is the auto industry, and how Toyota managed to become the top dog from having started as a manufacturer of cheap low quality cars. This example is particularly pertinent in India, where Tata motors, the succesful domestic Indian automanufacturer is aiming at selling a car for under $2500. If they succeed, perhaps they can become a new Toyota? The tremendously large Indian population offers a huge amount of non-consumers, that can be turned into a powerful customer constituencies by low cost innnovations. Fuelled by a rapidly growing domestic market, perhaps India can make ripples across the world? This is definitely an interesting possibility!

The interest for Innovation Journalism is large. I met with editors of the major Indian business news publications, and was interviewed in the ADTV morning show. The IANS news agency (Indo Asian News Service) published a story (see next post).

Christensen's thoughts are definitely relevant also for the news business. India has excellent journalists, they are well educated, the job has a decent status, and best of all: the business is doing well. The growing literacy in India is providing many millions of new readers every year. The Indian media and entertainment industry is expected to grow by 18% per year until 2011, according to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry! If the Indian news industry goes for innovation, watch out competitors in the rest of the world!

For those who are interested, the program for the Global Innovation Summit in India is attached.

GISProgram.pdf