Innovation Discussion 4: What does it take to sustain an innovative culture? Is there an appropriate time for an organization not to be innovative? What makes Austin, Boston, and Silicon Valley innovative ecosystems? Check out this Silicon Valley Tech Innovation Infographic from Accenture:http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-silicon-valley-tech-innovation-ecosystem-infographic.aspx What other geographic areas throughout the world do you consider to be innovative? Why?

Reply on 2 students response. Student 1: There are two key aspects of organizational solutions to move towards a robust innovation in conventional companies. First, innovation is much more a challenge of people management than a technical or design problem. Developing the capacity to innovate requires a change of paradigm in the way of directing and in the way of acting of the people. Second, and more important, innovation points to the top; it is a problem of transformative leadership, which does not allow for delegation. Moving towards a fully innovative culture requires a change of skills and management practices that until now had not been key in senior management positions in companies. However, an approach to the way senior executives do innovative companies illustrates that they have become fully aware that the uniqueness of their companies begins with the change itself. When it comes to talking about entrepreneurship in the United States, it is inevitable to think about Silicon Valley. For many entrepreneurs, the San Francisco Bay Area offers the best conditions to turn your idea into a successful business. The presence of talented engineers, investors willing to contribute resources and the presence of the great headquarters of the technological giants are some of the fundamental elements that attract hundreds of entrepreneurs. Stanford created an ecosystem that promoted and facilitated entrepreneurship through creativity. Thus, it implemented a business incubator that helped entrepreneurs to materialize ideas (Vault, 2018). Entrepreneurship is fashionable, and in Latin American countries there is a strong tendency to incentive it. However, there is a risk, if the necessary conditions are not created, in a few years we will have a wave of unsuccessful entrepreneurs. And it is not enough to support with financing. Encouraging entrepreneurship without having created a favorable ecosystem can be counterproductive. The philosophy of Silicon Valley is "to err, to err and to err", which allows entrepreneurs to persevere and not be frustrated by setbacks. On the other hand, Like Beijing, Shanghai is another of the most populated cities in the world, with 24.1 million inhabitants. The multiple coworking spaces that it offers favor the appearance of startups. Today it has about 1,800-2,700 active (Vinnie, 2017). Shanghai offers ample incentives for innovators to take calculated risks, in addition to having certain places where startups can get to rent an establishment at a very low price or even for free. The venture capitalists also have support, and can be reimbursed up to $ 900,000 if the startup in the development phase in which they invested bankruptcy(Vinnie,2017). The city has been able to react quickly to the demand of the technological ecosystem. One particular innovation that they implemented was that of Mobike, a startup that provides bicycles in a system similar to Uber's, and that recently reached the 215 million dollars raised in its fund, they already have more than 100,000 units spread across five Chinese cities, which can be rented for 20 cents an hour. Berlin continues its rise to the elite of entrepreneurship ecosystems, climbing from the ninth position of 2015 to the seventh of this year (Harrison, 2018). The city does not stop receiving talent from outside and the industry is in full growth, with some technology startups currently active. Most of them are focused on FinTech, digital health, artificial intelligence, mobility, culinary technology and cybersecurity. Student 2: Innovation is no longer just a nice to have, it has become a matter of survival for established companies. This is because startups are now better funded and their incentives are in the right place. Whereas, for innovation in large corporates this is not necessarily the case. Leaders may be keen for their teams to innovate, but they fall victim to the myths around innovation. Since they don't really understand how innovation systems work, they start engaging in a lot of different activities. Companies have been trying everything from idea competitions, rapid prototyping, hackathons and more expensive programs such as innovation labs and corporate accelerators. Sustaining an innovative culture starts with the mindset. Encouraging the new ideas and rewarding for the same is the first stepping stone to adopt the innovative thinking in a long run. Sometimes, existing business obligations can create pressure on the individual to put more focus on the daily activities, thereby neglecting the innovative or novel thoughts which may hold the promising future for business. Hence to inculcate the new ideas or innovativeness in the whole set up or organization, it should creep in from top to bottom. If the top management of the organization endorses the new ideas and always encourage such type of thoughts, then it can automatically be spread across all the levels. While doing so, it can be ensured that all the resources are aligned with this culture and can challenge themselves to push the limits. Adopting innovative ideas may not be possible for some firms who have just begun their commercial operations and need some time and corpus fund to sustain in the business front before embarking on the innovative ideas. Hence sometimes it could be the business requirement for small firms to overlook the innovative culture and stick with the daily commercial routine to ensure that revenues are coming on the regular basis. Austin, Boston and Silicon Valley, all are the incubation hub for the start-ups and young minds who always believe in innovative ideas and that’s the reason they are tasting the success at the very early stage as their ideas are not traditional and have more novelty. In my opinion, China is one of the innovative geographical area throughout the world. China is now among the top 20 most innovative countries in the world per the Global Innovation Index, or GII – a ranking produced by INSEAD. "China’s innovation prowess becomes evident in various areas," wrote the authors of this year's GII report. "It shows some of its greatest improvements in global R&D (research and development) companies, high-tech imports, the quality of its publications, and tertiary enrollment. In absolute values, and in areas such as R&D expenditures and the number of researchers, patents, and publications. On the other hand, Germany, considered one of the most technologically advanced European nations, ranked ninth in the GII, while Japan was surpassed by fellow Asian countries Singapore and South Korea, which were ranked fifth and 13th, respectively. All three Asian countries are seen as one of the world's most forward-looking countries.