Adapt Or Be Left Behind: How Norway Is Changing Through Innovation
Innovation Heroes Episode. 2 with Truls Berg, a global leader and Founder of the Open Innovation Ecosystem of Norway on the rate of innovation in the Nordics, how crowdsourcing is speeding up success, and innovation readiness is key.
The innovation ecosystem in Norway is well-known as one of the most advanced and inspiring landscapes in the world today. How organizations are keeping up with the fast pace of global innovation depends on having the right mindset, skillset, and toolset to do the job. Networks are forming across industries and anyone looking to accelerate and adapt in this innovation age is on the field and also assisting partner regions in doing the same. Truls Berg is still an optimist and is making sure all members of the Open Innovation Lab of Norway are supported in the work ahead of them.
🔉 Click to listen 👇
This Innovation Heroes segment welcomed Open Innovation Lab of Norway’s Truls Berg to discuss the current rate of innovation in the Nordic regions, how crowdsourcing is speeding up success, and how innovation readiness is a core ability affecting every sector and industry.
In this episode, Adam and Truls Berg discuss :
- The ‘Networked’ Mindset, Digital Transformation & Cross-pollination
- Investing in Innovation
- Innovation ecosystem in Norway
- Every Industry Must Become Agile
- Sustainability/Net-zero, Oil & Gas, Recycling & Accelerating the Circular Economy (TOMRA)
- Staying an Optimist, Norway in the Next 5 Years
- Leadership — Taking Responsibility in Helping Other Regions
The conversation covered a lot of ground, here are 6 key highlights: 👇
1) Opening up Pandora’s Box of Innovation
I kind of woke up to the reality that we need to address the innovation techniques, the tools, the mindset, and also the whole way of thinking, in a whole different way. That’s the start of the Open Innovation Lab and we invited some of Norway’s leading companies across industries across the sectors, and that’s where it all started. The truth of the matter is that the real benefits of digitalization, or the digital transformation I probably should say, really come when you are involving your employees and your customers and open up this pandora’s box of innovation.
2) The Easiest Thing, the Hardest Work
One of my challenges is to basically raise the awareness that the right tools can really cut down on the tedious work that is involved with innovating. We basically say that innovating is probably the easiest thing in the world and it’s the hardest work in the world because everybody that has been in the shower or taking a ride on the bus has had a good idea, but to implement it in a company that is already full of its culture and probably doing quite well… that’s the most tedious and admirable work that is going on. And to use those tools and use those tools in the right way. We still have a long way to go but the field is widening up here a bit because the leaders, the best ones, are basically running away from the rest of the field.
3) Your Network is a Tool
It really does come down to finding the right tool for the right situation depending on what the organizations are working on. I think the network that you’re building on the partnership side, and having access to all these different tools that you can then pass along to your network of organizations is a really cool concept and I think it would be great to see more networks like yours (HeroX) developed around the world.
We are trying to include all the different networks. We are not instead. Obviously, if you are a bank, we were not telling them that you should not be part of any finance sector network. On the contrary, we think that that’s probably very useful, but that is not instead of being part of the Open Innovation Lab of Norway. We do see these kinds of networks popping up a bit more often now and that’s why I’m actually probably spending more and more of my time now talking to networks in other regions of the world. Which to me is fun and it is also interesting but it’s about the mindset and then it’s also about the skill set and then it’s the tool set. So all of those three, if you get those lined up then you can do amazing things.
5) You Must include Sustainability
Because in honesty you cannot do innovation in Norway or in the Nordics in 2022 without including the United Nations Sustainability Goals. That’s part of the picture and you basically cannot fulfill any of those goals without doing innovation in a much better and more involved way. So, these things are tied together. And what we see is that the best one has gotten the message a long time ago and they’re running away, some are still more talkers than doers, and I bet you see that elsewhere in the world as well. At the end of the day, that’s kind of where the customers will probably be the ones that will be voting with their wallets. That’s our expectation.
6) The Future of Norway
I want to see Norway as one of those innovation leaders in the world where we are taking on not only just a leading role but the leading role in the world when it comes to innovation. And basically try to utilize the fact that we are quite well off also moneywise, and taking a much larger responsibility in helping both Africa and other regions become able to then leapfrog into the circular economy thinking way faster.
I think we have an obligation, I think we have the possibility, I think we actually also have the skillset. And with your help and with other great tools help we also have the possibility to be able to pull that off. It could be through United Nations, it could be through other ways of working, but it definitely has to involve crowdsourcing and new innovative ways, but that’s what I hope to see.
Connect with Truls:
Twitter: Truls Berg | LinkedIn: Truls Berg | Resources: Open Innovation Lab of Norway | TOMRA
Norway’s leading meeting place and network for Innovation Professionals. The Open Innovation Lab of Norway is a community of Norway’s most innovative corporations and some of the world’s leading open innovation experts. The goal is to inspire, innovate and share insight along the path to success.
🔉Thank you for checking out Episode #2 of the Innovation Heroes series!
Let’s keep the conversation going! Interested in chatting with Adam on an Innovation Heroes segment or recommending a guest? To join the queue, send an email to possibilities@herox.com Attn: Adam + Innovation Heroes Include your name, email, and topic of interest (you can also use the HeroX contact form).
🔉 About the Innovation Heroes podcast
The Innovation Heroes series covers all things open innovation, crowdsourcing, and remote work. It’s time to open up the airways, share strategies, engage partners, and leverage the power of crowd intelligence to expedite solutions to the pressing problems facing every level of organization, individuals, and the world. The key word here is OPEN.
We’re bringing our partners in innovation, organizations who have run their own crowdsourcing projects, innovator powerhouses, and remote work legends into the spotlight. There is a global network ready to contribute time, energy and intelligence to just about any challenge that comes their way. All we need to do is provide the opportunity. Thank you for being a part of the solution. Discover the Power of the Crowd
About Adam Olsen | Connect
Adam is your Podcast Host and Possibilities Manager at HeroX, connecting with innovation leaders from around the world to gain insights on how they approach innovation, the technologies they’re most excited about, and how these innovations impact their industries.
HeroX is a platform and open marketplace for crowdsourcing innovation that allows anyone, anywhere, to solve everyday business and world challenges using the power of the crowd.
Connect with Adam: LinkedIn, possibilities@herox.com
Your Crowd. Your Solution.
Originally published at https://www.herox.com.
