Barrie McKenna had an opinion piece in Saturday’s Globe and Mail, “In Ottawa, innovation is just a word in search of meaning.” It opens with “The Trudeau government is obsessed with innovation. It may not have fully embraced the concept yet, but it sure loves the word.”
The article observes that, despite the word “innovation” figuring prominently in so many funding announcements to every type of institution and business from coast to coast, “the government does not have a coherent innovation strategy.”
That’s not surprising. After all, the previous government engaged in a multi-year, multi-departmental digital strategy consultation only to produce a light weight document that read more like a campaign pamphlet, entitled “Digital Canada 150.”
In McKenna’s Innovation article, he says:
The coming budget is an opportunity for Ottawa to start getting its policies right. A good starting point would be to spell out what outcomes the government wants from its innovation strategy – clear and measurable targets. Then, it should spell out what it intends to do to help Canada get there, adding new programs where there are obvious gaps.
That sounds familiar. When digital Canada 150 was released, I commented: “Europe released a digital scorecard looking at where it stands on targets in its digital agenda. What does Canada’s scorecard look like?”
Over the past year, I have written a number of pieces (such as “Measuring success” and “Inconsistent messages; predictable turmoil” and “Building a digital economy dashboard“) that call for the government to provide clear, measurable objectives for our digital policy agenda.
However, I diverge from McKenna on one of his closing points, where he calls for “putting real money on the table. Canada is being outspent and outmanoeuvred by its trading partners.”
As I wrote a few years ago when Digital Canada 150 was released, success requires leadership more than money. “Set clear objectives. Align activities with the achievement of those objectives. Stop doing things that are contrary to the objectives.”
When I was first being shown around Bell Labs in the mid-1980s, my boss commented to me that success in our jobs wouldn’t depend on being in the office Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 5:00. You can’t say to a group of researchers “Today, we are going to invent the transistor.”
Succeeding in innovation means creating the kind of environment that attracts people who will innovate, fostering policies that encourage risk, and allowing success to flourish and be rewarded.
As politically appealing as it may be to spend government money under the guise of innovation, it is far more important to set those clear and measurable targets, as called for by Barrie McKenna.
“Set clear objectives. Align activities with the achievement of those objectives. Stop doing things that are contrary to the objectives.” That takes leadership, not money.
The theme of The 2017 Canadian Telecom Summit (June 5-7, Toronto) is “Competition, Investment and Innovation: Driving Canada’s Digital Future“. On Wednesday, June 7, Namir Anani, the CEO of Canada’s Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) will be hosting a panel at The Canadian Telecom Summit entitled “Disruptive Innovation: Driving Canada’s Digital Future.” Have you registered yet?