Yes indeed!

Thanks so much for these comments. I would love to translate to French.. but of course I don't speak French. I will try to find someone though, and of course, there is a Google Translate box in the sidebar.

I certainly am claiming I wrote this. I did write it. It's reprinted on my other blog Innovator Inside, if that's what you're referring to. james.

That is a very lovely comment. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comment, however cross you must have been when you wrote it. The point I was trying to make is that we if want to increase the success of innovation programmes, we have to let more people be part of innovation programmes. Perhaps I didn't express myself clearly. Anyway, I'm hardly throwing in the towel. I'm working with an innovation management company trying to make that innovators are succesful everywhere - including government. I think it is useful work. You seem to be angry with me about something. I'd like to have a chat with you about it if you're interested. If I've done something specific to offend you, at least I'd be able to apologise. James.

Thank you very much Stephen, I really appreciate these very kind remarks. I'll miss all my public sector colleagues, but hope I'll still have the chance to collaborate with you all in the future. J.

Well, will miss you all too. But I hope we still get to have some kind of interaction from time to time. James.

Well it is probably new product development. But who said marketing couldn't be innovative?

"Who values initial knowledge?" I think that's the key point I was trying to make. There is value in pure research, but more in turning that research into something that people can actually use. Key conclusion for innovators: if value maximisation is the name of the game, you should take what has already been discovered and try to convert it into stuff people can use.

Andrew, As you might expect, it is presently not really in any form that's suitable for publication. I think I will come back to this work in due course, but not until after I'm done with Sidestep and Twist, of course. Am so grateful you're interested in the work, though, and will make sure that if I do eventually kill the project off altogether, I'll send you everything i've written to date. Thanks so much for your comment

Steve, Thanks for your comment. Your comments go directly to the argument I'm making in my next book: innovation for the purposes of creating genuinely new things actually doesn't pay for the reasons you describe. Sometimes it does cost millions to do really new stuff, and that stuff is often easily copied regardless of dark ages IP protections. Protecting ideas and knowledge seems backward when the thing that can't actually be copied is people's investment in any platform that you *create* with the knowledge. After people have invested themselves in your stuff, they don't move very often regardless of how good the competition is. That's why noone ever moves their bank accounts even if someone has something better. I guess my point is there's a shift happening. In the old world, it was the accumulation of knowledge that drove value, and you protected the knowledge to ensure your stuff didn't commoditise. Now, it is what you do with knowledge that counts, and *sharing* it drives the value. The old-guard doesn't see it that way yet, I know. But they will, I think,

I do have to wonder, Thelema, whether what is going to happen is that the old hierarchies will simply dissolve as more and more of the useful stuff happens at the edge. Command and control is a broken paradigm for any really nimble organisation, I think. And our new generation of managers - the digital natives - will probably simply ignore established orders in their drive to do new things. I look forward to it, myself.

So nice of you to say that. I really appreciate it.

Oh please tell me more! Would love to hear how you are managing that! Sent from my iPhone

I think that a rather unfair question in public forum such as this. Its impossible to say whether I'll be around for the whole of the welfare reform agenda, and to be honest those decisions aren't actually only in my hands. I'm as much subject to potential public sector cuts as anyone else, you know. I'd like to think that the work i'm doing now is worth a bit more than the "hanging out" label you just ascribed to it though. And one last point: if all I doing was waiting for promotion to the "next highest career bidding banking opportunity", can you honestly imagine for one second I'd have left banking in the first place? To join the civil service? Obviously not.

That is, indeed, part of my role. As to a compelling and *positive* vision of the future: it is not always appropriate to do that, especially when the future is not especially compelling or positive. I think it better to be honest; people would rather have the truth than some convenient whitewash. And the truth is that for public sector employees, there are challenging times ahead. Of course, your point is that managers must be more interested in their people than themselves if they are to be good managers: with that I agree completely.

I do not see promotion as a way to secure the future... it is a way to get greater rewards. True security comes only from being so good no one can live without you. I think it is impossible to "accept" cultural stuff in an organisation blindly. Everything should be, and is, up for challenge. Knowing something about your position in our organisation, I know that we are all facing challenges right now. I would say this, though: the civil service is increasingly being asked to operate more like a business. To do that, I think it is reasonable that we bring in people who have actually run businesses. The "dog eat dog" you see may, in fact, be the healthy competition that the private sector has already, and which we in the civil service have been largely insulated from.... do you not think?

But perhaps you're one of the ones that decided to opt out?

Neil, My "apologist attitude" is a necessary caution when speaking from inside a very large, in the spotlight organisation. It is neither appropriate nor reasonable that I talk about *everything* I think or do day to day. If this makes it look as if I'm insufficiently forward thinking, then all I can say is I regret we've not have the chance to meet, nor for you to observe anything other than my public writing, so you could have the chance to see whether your assumptions are true or not.

Thanks Steph, and I agree with all your points. I think there's a potential problem, though, and that's getting a line manager to agree that good troublemaking elsewhere is actually worthy of recognition in their local area. I think it is a very, very good manager that is so altruistic. Perhaps it is rare enough that innovators need to luck out in getting one. What about the others?

Maybe not today, but what about in 5 years... or ten?

With that I can agree completely.

That's a good point - and actually goes to something else we've been considering of late, which is the long term future of private networks. de-perimeterisation is coming of age, you know, and in the decade timeframe, its really rather likely that all this fortress stuff will be substantially over. Its the bottleneck of fortress architecture which makes all this stuff hard today, I think.

Yes, I already saw that... its a very interesting parting note, isn't it.

Dear Anonymous, I am really sorry to hear your experience has been so poor. But I would point out that there's a pretty clear guide for civil servants about what you can and can't do in the social media field. Talking about work is perfectly acceptable within sensible boundaries. And, as you can see, I talk about work all the time here... and haven't thus far had many problems despite the fact that media sometimes take my remarks and print them out of context. In the meantime, perhaps, I'd point out that despite your experience to date, you are obviously making points which are significant enough to have your Director stand up and take notice. This is probably an uncomfortable position - but can I thank you on behalf of everyone else, because your activities can only serve to make the path easier for those who follow. Revolutionaries never have it easy, I'm afraid. I commend you for being one.