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  Eli Weir · 2010/01/06 at 14:08

  Recent success in the UK has shown that local government can have a huge impact on the economy, via the way they act and interact. The more agile, accessible and innovative the council, the higher the level of successful innovation in the business community. If we want more of the success alluded to above, we need to ensure that we have actively cultured it.

  An unpredictable economic climate coupled with shifting patterns of demand and growing pressure on public services, mean that the council is going to need to play a pro-active role in achieving significantly better outcomes, for significantly lower costs. One response to this dual challenge of better outcomes and lower costs would be to retrench and focus on ever greater efficiencies in the quest to make the figures add up and to ensure that limited resources can go further. Of course, efficiency and productivity are both deeply important issues. But in themselves, they will not be sufficient to meet the changing and increasingly complex issues that government is now expected to tackle.

  If the pressure on budgets is growing, so too is the pressure on local government to tackle a wider range of issues than ever before: where current policies are not working well enough, or where new issues are emerging that have not been on the agenda in the past. All of these problems share one characteristic: they are defined by an uncertainty about what works. In other words, there is no best practice that exists and can simply be shared – instead the local government sector needs to develop next practice: it will need to innovate in order to achieve better outcomes.

  An increasing number of organisations are recognising that slicing existing budgets ever more thinly is not enough in today’s world, and that competition and outsourcing alone will not do the trick. An altogether bolder approach is needed, focused on searching out, incubating, and sustaining much more radical and game-changing innovations. This shift in mindset can be illustrated by imagining the difference in tactics one might use depending on whether you were told to shave 2 per cent of your budget every year for 10 years, or to strike 25 per cent of your budget off the balance sheet in a single year. In the second scenario, your options necessarily become more radical. And, given the nature of the problems public services are now facing, this second mindset is the one that we need to adopt when it comes to issues such as climate change, social care or public health – or how to stimulate the local economy.

  Does our local government have the right attitude and skills for the difficult times ahead? There are a well-documented set of barriers within local government and other parts of the public sector. These include: a pressure for compliance and risk avoidance, rather than innovation and risk management; a poor connection between insights from the front-line and policy work; a difficulty in finding ways to ‘export’ innovations from local contexts. Many senior staff note the need for a new kind of leadership to stimulate innovation – acknowledging that too often, innovations have the feel of a ‘happy accident’, driven by entrepreneurial individuals who don’t take no as an answer.

  I would suggest that the best way forward is to change the way in which we view the part of various players in the game, that we now have the appropriate technology, methods of communication and social structures to allow a far greater level of engagement and participation from the business community and other constituents. Entrepreneurship and innovation should be cultivated at all levels and by all players.

  There are three distinctive but equally important roles that local government can and should be playing when it comes to innovation:

  1. Local government as the driver of local innovation. By creating Innovation Clusters and partnering with the private sector, the council can create a step change in the pace at which the city-region can adapt to changing circumstances, new ideas and fresh opportunities.
  2. Local government as an incubator for testing, developing and improving new approaches to public service provision.
  3. Local government as a constructive disruptor – taking an active role in not just reacting to events, but predicting or causing them

  One of the secrets to success is having the ability to easily communicate and collaborate across the public and private sectors – from schools through to service providers, government agencies and enterprises. The application of social media and networking technology within the council and other organisations, and out across the city, will help (the “Enterprise 2.0″ phenomenon). A city of creative, innovative people who are always connected (via the free city-wide network – WiFi or otherwise), who can access information and each other on-demand? Unstoppable …

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  Paul Spence · 2010/04/14 at 22:28

  Wellington’s startup ecosystem is continuing to gather momentum and we are expecting Wellington to the World to be even bigger and better in 2010. Some of the coolest startup companies in the world are being incubated right here in Wellington and a lot of the that is due to the fact that we can attract and retain clever people. That means we need to continue to build an environment that is business friendly and encourages creativity.

  Wellington to the World is a great showcase for what I call the city’s “quiet achievers”. By using social media, video and through the linkages we have begun building in Silicon Valley it means that our emerging technology ventures can reach out globally. It is important that local government continue to support such initiatives.

  We very much appreciated Jack stepping in to take up an impromptu guest spot on our entrepreneur discussion panel at W2W ‘09, by the way.

  Paul Spence
  Event Director
  Unlimited Potential – Wellington to the World

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