We live in a time where change is happening faster than many organizations have time to plan for. Climate change, digitalization, geopolitics, energy transition and new technologies are changing the conditions in almost every sector. The problem is that many innovation methods are based on a fairly stable world. You […]
Yearly Archives: 2026
57 posts
For most of modern history, innovation has had a fairly clear logic. Invent something new. Produce it efficiently. Find a market. And if the market runs out in one place, there is almost always another. A new region. A new country. A new continent. A new group of people who […]
We build them bigger and bigger. Hall after hall filled with servers. Cooling systems that hum 24/7. Cables that wind like nerve fibers through metal structures. Data centers in the Arctic cold to save energy. Data centers in the desert with gigantic solar parks. And now we’re even talking about […]
We’ve all been there. A meeting that lifts. A workshop that feels alive. Conversations flow. Ideas bounce between people. Time flies. When we leave the room, we’re satisfied, energized, and convinced that we’ve just been part of creating something important. We often think that it was our own input that […]
There is something strange happening right now. We have more help than ever. AI writes, summarizes, plans, analyzes. Automation streamlines. The flow of information is endless. Yet many people feel tired. Tired in the head. Tired in the body. Tired of constantly having to take in more. We scroll to […]
Two words are popping up more and more often in conversations about the future. Circularity and resilience. They are sometimes used almost as synonyms. But they do not mean the same thing. At the same time, they are so closely intertwined that you can see them as a kind of […]
We humans think in stories. We remember them, retell them, and use them to understand change. Yet many organizations try to communicate their journey through strategy documents, job descriptions, and bullet points. The result is often accurate but flat. The Hero’s Journey is a simple but powerful framework that helps […]
There is a point where more thinking no longer helps. Where more analysis does not create more clarity but rather more delay. That point occurs more often than we think. When the complexity of a system increases, the world changes faster than our plans. The conditions shift. Actors react. New […]
We love simple explanations. Something happens. We point to a cause. We feel satisfied. Sales went down because the market was tough. The project failed because the team lacked resources. I procrastinated because I’m lazy. The problem is that the world doesn’t work linearly. It works in circles. It’s not […]
There are urban planners who design neighborhoods. And then there are visionaries who redesign the entire relationship between humans, nature and the city. Paolo Soleri was one such visionary. Back in the sixties, he started talking about something he called arcology. A word he himself coined as a merger of […]
When Elinor Ostrom received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009, it was not because she had invented a new market model or defended central government control. She did something more radical. She showed that people, completely without a superior manager or an invisible hand, can organize themselves and manage […]
There is a state that almost all successful innovation leaders share, but which is rarely mentioned in the job description. It is not creativity per se. It is not methodological knowledge. It is a feeling. An inner pulse. A feeling that something has to happen. Now. It is called urgency. […]
Storytelling is one of those concepts that sounds like a positive thing in theory. Everyone talks about telling a story to get people to understand, engage, and act. But the reality is more complex. Stories can be amazing tools for understanding, community, and creative change. At the same time, stories […]
We often talk about the need to think outside the box. Less often we talk about how we actually do it. Creativity rarely arises just because we decide. The brain needs nudges, disruptions, new angles. It needs triggers that help us shift perspectives. An unexpected but powerful shift in perspective […]
The concept of scale has long been used in social innovation to understand how ideas and solutions spread, enlarge or deepen within social systems. In particular, research has pointed to three different ways of working with scaling as complementary paths to real system change: scaling up, scaling out and scaling […]
System innovation may sound technical and structural, but in practice it often starts with something very human. A story. When many organizations, professions and interests are to move in a new direction, reports, calculations and logical reasoning are rarely enough. Rational arguments are important but they are almost never sufficient. […]
It sounds like a contradiction. Breaking the law and at the same time strengthening democracy. But that’s exactly where civil disobedience lives. In that strange borderland where someone says “this is not okay anymore” and does it in a way that is open, conscious and non-violent. Not to destroy society […]
Systems innovation attracts with the promise of real change but almost always meets resistance, confusion and frustration along the way. This is not because people are unwilling or that the methods are wrong, but because systems themselves are complex, alive and sensitive to change. Working with systems innovation therefore involves […]
Leadership has always been about getting people moving in a common direction. What has changed is the context. When organizations operate in stable environments, traditional leadership is sufficient. When they operate in uncertain, fast-moving and interconnected systems, it is no longer sufficient. This is when the need for innovation leadership […]
In innovation and social development, the concept of ecosystems is increasingly appearing. But what does it really mean to think in terms of ecosystems, and why is it so important? Thinking in terms of ecosystems is a way of seeing the context, relationships and the whole rather than focusing on […]
Innovation is often portrayed as something new, fast, and digital. In reality, each generation has been convinced that their way of thinking is the right one and that the next generation has lost its grip. That’s why innovation always arises in the tension between generations. Let’s go from the youngest […]
In an age where information flows faster than we can think, it is easy to become a passive consumer of other people’s ideas. Flows, algorithms and short formats reward the fast and reactive. Against this, a different approach is emerging. Digital gardens. A way to slowly cultivate one’s own knowledge, […]
Many organizations and individuals are trained to interpret changes in the outside world based on a simple question: How can this benefit us? When new technology emerges, when rules change or when societal challenges become clear, people quickly look for opportunities to protect their position or strengthen their competitiveness. This […]
In many organizations, a lot of energy is put into developing the business model. You draw canvases, calculate income and formulate business plans. At the same time, the business idea is often left untouched. It is problematic because the business idea is the foundation on which everything else rests. If […]
In many organizations the word complexity is used as an explanation for why things cannot be changed. It is said that the problems are complex, that the outside world is complex or that the systems are too complex to touch. But often different types of complexity are mixed together. In […]
We often confuse the terms simple and easy. Often they are used almost as synonyms but in practice they describe two completely different things. For innovation, creativity and leadership, this difference is crucial. Understanding it makes it possible to work on complex issues without simplifying away what is important. Albert […]
The open source movement emerged from a technical context but has evolved into something much bigger than code. It represents a way of organizing people, knowledge and creativity that has proven time and again to be able to create enormous impact without relying on traditional hierarchies or ownership structures. At […]