The

XXIII ISPIM Conference – Action for Innovation: Innovating from Experience – took place in Barcelona, Spain on 17-20 June 2012. Organised by ISPIM, and hosted by La Salle University in partnership with Orbita97, this conference have brought together around 500 innovation experts from over 60 countries. ISPIM (The International Society for Professional Innovation Management) is a network of researchers, industrialists, consultants and public bodies who share an interest in innovations management.Since 1990 La Salle Barcelona is a federated school at the Universitat Ramon Llull (URL), although its existence dates back to 1903 when it was the first school of telecommunications in Catalonia and the first institution that taught multimedia engineering in Spain and Europe.

The three-day programme included: 10 Industry-Leading Keynote Speakers;; 20 Innovation Thought Leaders; 40 "Hot Topic" Roundtable Discussions; Facilitated Themed Sessions with around 250 Academic and Practitioner Presentations; 8 Special Interest Groups; 5 Academic Research Development Sessions,8 Workshops.

Over 250 participants presentations from academic, research, consulting, industry, intermediary and policy focused on the following general themes or Conference Focus Theme: Action for Innovation (Conference Focus Theme); Collaboration for Innovation (incl. Open Innovation); Creativity & Idea Generation; Entrepreneurship, Business Models & Financing Innovation; Innovation Training, Education & Learning; Tools & Measurement for innovation; Networks & Clusters of Innovation, Sustainability in Innovation.

The plea for innovation is universal. Managers and politicians have understood that innovation is needed on an everyday-basis to strengthen the competitiveness of organisations, regions and countries. Innovation, however, requires more than good ideas and intentions. Leadership, foresight, courage, investment, inspiration and perspiration are needed to turn intentions and ideas into effective action. Even with these elements in place, not every initiative is successful. However, every action and each experience provide new insights into the causes of failed and successful innovation. Successful innovators, be they individuals, organisations, intermediaries or policy makers, must therefore overcome the paradox of building on experience, and yet breaking away from the status quo, with a permanent innovation mindset. These challenges of "Action for Innovation" were the core focus of this conference.

The presenstations and key notes were made by experts from 53 countries including from well-known organisations such as: Tata, Harvard University, Xerox, University of Cambridge, SAP, Siemens, The Wharton School, University of St.Gallen, Deutsche Telekom, Detecon Consulting, University of Tokyo, UCLA, Lockheed Martin, Lancaster University, The European Commission, Alcatel-Lucent, Volkswagen. As with all ISPIM events, delegates have had great experience a taste of local culture at magnificent dinner venues so there were plenty of time for networking.

ITT RAEN foreign member Dr. Julius Golovatchev (Detecon Consulting / Deutsche Telekom Group, Bonn, Germany) participated on the conference with full academic paper and the presentation: “Configurable innovation and product management according to the complexity level in network industries”. The paper examines a metric for complexity measurement originating from the manufacturing industry and adopts it for network industries (e.g. utility or telecommunication). The metric consists of four dimensions: multiplicity, variety, interaction and dynamics. Each dimension has been further objectified by identifying industry specific indicators. The results have been validated through discussion rounds with experts from an international telecommunication consultancy. The cases have been selected in order to cover the whole spectrum of communication service providers in terms of size, region, product range and degree of state regulation. Based on the results of a cluster analysis, specific ranges in each complexity dimension could be linked to a complexity group. As a final outcome of this paper Dr. Julius Golovatchev presented three complexity groups for communication service providers. These results form the basis for choosing the appropriate design elements for the implementation of innovation and product management in the praxis for each complexity group.

The paper and presentation “Configurable innovation and product management according to the complexity level in network industries” are available upon request.