Chris Shipley's Innovate!Europe 2005 Closing Remarks
These last two days have been a whirlwind of learning. And I must start by thanking all of you for sharing your ideas, your experiences, your contrarian views. Your active participation in our discussions have made this conference incredibly valuable, and your perspectives have contributed considerably to the work of white paper, and to the work each of us will take from this place.
I arrived in Zaragoza with a set of expectations about how this conference would go. I expected that we would uncover some very difficult problems – changes that would be hard to make. I expected that we would identify obvious challenges that would be easier to overcome.
And perhaps, what I heard was that the hard things will be easy – at least easier than I expected – and the easy things may, indeed, be very hard.
We might have expected that this conference would issue a bold cry for massive change in the business and political infrastructure–- a call, for example, for more homogeneous regulations to make cross-border businesses easier. In fact, there was very little of that.
As we heard from Mårten and our panelists this morning, there are diverse and effective strategies for building global businesses, and these strategies are working. Transatel consolidates an international team in one location; MySQL is highly distributed with employees working in 100 countries. Both strategies work, and we can learn from them.
We might have expected to hear about specific business practices that must be learned and adopted, and indeed we did. This is neither hard, nor easy, but simply work that must be done. European businesses must learn the art of product management, we were told several times yesterday. And this afternoon the point was well made that innovation must be driven in collaboration with customers to be truly valuable.
And we expected, of course, to talk about culture –- the culture of entrepreneurship and of risk. And we heard from Sven yesterday, Marten this morning, and in one way or another from almost all of our speakers, that entrepreneurs must learn to embrace risk.
This, of course, is a very hard thing. In fact, it may well be easier to reform regulations throughout Europe than it is to encourage just one individual to step off the cliff of entrepreneurship – and for his European colleagues to catch him if he falls and applaud him if he flies.
If, as Mårten suggests, society’s values are reflected in the heroes it chooses, then we must celebrate entrepreneurs and turn them into heroes in order to build a society that values and honors technology and business innovation.
Perhaps one thing I did not expect – at least in the measure that I witnessed this week – was the individual empowerment and connectedness among each of you. No one here is wrestling with these issues alone.
While we recognize and agree that the European Technology Innovation Ecosystem is fragmented, it is clear that through open and candid dialog, these fragments can come together.
This morning, Mårten talked about the value of this wonderful heterogeneous continent as a driver for innovation. As entrepreneurs learn from one another’s cultures and experiences, they see new ways of designing products, serving customers, solving products, building businesses.
The not-so-subtle theme that underlay each of the speakers at Innovate!Europe is the need for change.
Change is, indeed, very hard. But, I am feeling optimistic that change can happen.
I am confident that this will not be a conference where important ideas are discussed and, I quote again Mårten Mikos, “Absolutely nothing happens.”
I believe the people in this room have the desire to make change happen, the willingness to teach others, the willingness to lead.
As you reflect on these last two days, I remind you of the three questions we posited at the beginning of the conference:
As you answer these questions, I hope you will post your ideas and comments to the White Paper discussion Wiki.
More importantly, as you ask yourself, “what can I do to change the ecosystem?” I hope that you will, indeed, do it.
I thank you for being a part of this important dialog.
And again, I thank our sponsors for making this dialog possible.
Lastly, and most importantly, I thank the 20 showcase companies who shared with us their excellent innovations and I thank all of you for being here to share your stories, your ideas.
There is energy and optimism in this room, and I trust that you will, indeed, change your world.
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To see more of what happened at Innovate!Europe, to view the presentations, and to contribute to the conversation about European Innovation and Entrepreneurship, visit the White Paper Wiki.
