This is an excellent question and a follow on to a couple of my previous innovation posts. This post will be the first in a five part series.

The Conference Board of Canada produces an annual report that measures a number of key areas in the Canadian economy (the newest report was just released today). One of the areas measured  is Innovation. Declaration of personal bias; I feel that The Conference Board of Canada significantly lacks the knowledge and insight to develop meaningful metrics with respect to innovation. This is based on the general quality of the reports that I have had the opportunity to read regarding innovation (I have read all of the annual reports from 2000 – 2007 will be reading 2008 over the weekend). I find the Conference Board of Canada’s reports lack any real world insight or expertise. The metrics and reporting appear to be drawn from primarily academic and bureaucratic sources with little concept of what transpires in the private sector. That said lets have a review of their metrics and see what can be done to develop some meaningful metrics of our own.

Here are the general categories as extracted from the Conference Board of Canada 2007 “How Canada Performs; A Report Card on Canada”. The categories in the report are reasonably well done.

Creation: Generating new knowledge or significantly improving existing knowledge (through activities such as researching, inventing and designing).

Diffusion: Communicating and sharing knowledge (through activities such as mentoring, networking, collaborating, training and publishing).

Transformation: Developing new or significantly improved products and processes; adopting or adapting knowledge for specific purposes; and transforming knowledge (through activities such as prototyping, testing, customizing, producing and assembling).

Use: Commercializing and delivering or implementing new or significantly improved products or processes (through activities such as selling, buying, installing and operating).

One post will be dedicated to each of the following categories in the coming weeks.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Commercialization, Entrepreneurship, Innovation by Ian
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