From inertia to innovation Information-based organizations in the Age of Intelligence

an article by Roberta I. Shaffer (Library of Congress) published in IFLA Journal Volume 40 Number 3 (October 2014)

Abstract

As the Information Age has given rise to the Intelligence Age, institutions of all kinds are challenged to adopt a culture of constant innovation. Innovation is the broad term and includes the concepts of invention, ingenuity, and improvisation. Organizations go through a process of inquiry, instigation, insight, initiation, imagination and inspiration, and inlightenment to ultimately achieve innovation.

However, the road to full innovation offers many options like creating an incubator or being iterative, instantaneous, incomplete, or infectious in approach to innovating. To begin the innovative process, organizations must be willing to look at all aspects of their operations, make long-term commitments to funding, accept the possibility of some failure, and look seriously at their missions, value systems and value propositions.

Organizations that are insular, inflexible, in-bred, insincere about innovating, insecure in their ability to deliver, and operate independently are more likely to disappear or diminish in their influence because their environment and culture will not sustain innovation.

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