We’ve collected here the key posts on our What We’re Learning blog from each of our past, current, and potential projects, in chronological order:

Four Ways Higher Ed Can Treat the Classroom as an Innovative Workplace (2017.05)

Thomas Carey, WinCan’s Co-principal Catalyst and Academic Partners Lead, suggests four ways in which our teaching and learning environments can be reframed to provide all post-secondary students with experiential learning opportunities for capability in workplace innovation. (This article was originally posted in Academica Forum.

Industry 4.0: Accelerating an Evolution in Employee Capability and Institutional Agility (2017.08)

In this article, originally posted in Academica Forum, Thomas Carey and KPU Vice-President Salvador Ferreras discuss how educational institutions are and need to respond to the rapid acceleration of “Industry 4.0”.  The rapid pace of change will require our educational institutions – from primary to post-secondary – to revisit how we can best foster innovation, agility and adaptability to a new industrial and economic reality.

Innovation and Indigenous Ways of Knowing (2017.11)

Our team at Kwantlen Polytechnic University began exploring the WINCan theme of “Every Graduate an Innovation-Enabler” by creating an initial Knowledge Synthesis on Developing an Innovation-Enabled Workforce. As Tom and student partner Anya  Goldin developed this resource, we came across an emerging body of research on Innovation and Indigenous Ways of Knowing. These new perspectives offer an exceptional opportunity to extend partnerships with Indigenous communities and regional employers.

Introducing Workplace Innovation Capability in Higher Education (2018.01)

One of our key WINCan WOW factors is the concept of using our higher education “workplaces for  learning” as experiential learning opportunities in workplace innovation. That is, te introduction of a new teaching and learning practice can become a ‘teachable moment’ for students to develop their skills, knowledge, and mindsets for workplace innovation. In this post, Tom Carey and our pilot project team leader Farhad Dastur describe our initial pilot studies to test and refine this idea, hosted by Kwantlen Polytechnic University as the lead for a planned collaborative effort within the B.C. Association of Colleges and Universities.

Academic-Workplace Collaboration to Develop Workplace Innovation Capability - A Design Thinking Example (2018.02)

In this post, Tom Carey and Design instructor  Iryna Karaush explain the instructional design and rationale for a pilot course to integrate concepts of Employee-Driven Workplace Innovation into a Design Thinking course. We wanted  to see how existing pedagogies for Design Thinking might be extended to situate Design Thinking in a broader workplace context and to build  an understanding of the multiple roles which employees might undertake in a Design Thinking project.

Applying new ways of thinking in future work tasks - an Industry 4.0 example (2018.03)

We know that as the future of work and workplace continues to evolve at a fast pace, our graduates will need to adapt to working with new knowledge, new knowledge practices and formats, and new work roles and structures. While we can’t anticipate the form and timing of these changes, we can consider some that are already apparent and how our academic institutions might adapt to better prepare learners for change and innovation. In this  post, Tom and Sal consider the changes in work practices resulting from the impact of Industry 4.0/Internet of Things developments. (And this is just the initial wave of change for a set of phenomena that has been labelled appropriately as “Industry X.0”)

Results from this stream of our work are also applied in a forthcoming book chapter: “Polytechnic Education: Enduring Purpose and Practice Futures”. Carey, T and S. Ferreras. To appear in Polytechnic Education: A Vision for Ontario. (C. Whitaker, H. Marsh and N. Whitlock, (eds.). Humber Press 2020.

Introducing Innovation Adaptation in Higher Ed Classes (2018.04)

In this post, Tom Carey and two of our B.C. academic team members – Jennifer Williams from English and Kyle Jackson from History, describe their initial pilot projects in which students engaged in reflection on their experiences in adapting their work practices – for learning – to align with new teaching and learning methods and their own personal approaches to learning.

When Students  Get Creative with Work-Integrated Learning in Workplace Innovation (2018.05)

Learning to be  Surprised is a key competency in  workplace innovation. As an illustration, Farhad and Tom describe one of the  surprising results from our initial effort to engage university students in authentic workplace innovations with workplace partners.

Developing and Transferring Design Thinking Capability - an in-course Work-Integrated Learning project (2019.03)

Iryna Karaush and Tom Carey describe another experiment in the Wilson  School of Design prototype course  on Design Thinking and  Workplace Innovation: helping undergraduate students to transfer their capability in Design Thinking from an academic context to a corporate workplace setting. NationTalk, an Indigenous newswire service,  posted this news item about our collaboration between Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Richmond BC), the Tsawwassen First Nation Farm School (Tsawwassen BC) and IBM Canada’s Design Studio (Markham ON).

Results from this project were also described in the following book chapter:

Carey,  T., Dastur, F. & Karaush, I.  Workplace Innovations and Practice Futures. Chapter 20 in Higgs, J.,  Cork, S. &  Horsfall, D. (Eds)  Challenging Future Practice Possibilities. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Brill-Sense Publishers 2019.

Our  B.C. pilot project on Developing Innovation Capability in Higher Ed also generated a number of ideas on related topics:

Job Crafting for Industry 4.0 (2019.06)

In this  post by Tom Carey and Brian Haugen – Education  Director for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 115 (B.C. and Yukon) – we consider how learners in both higher ed and workplaces can develop  Job Crafting capability to help shape their tasks and roles in jobs of the future.

What Capability for Innovation Should Every Graduate Develop (2017.03)

Tom Carey highlights examples of how European (EUWIN and FINCODA) and Australian initiatives are testing new approaches to develop student capability for workplace innovation. He then challenges North American institutions to develop innovation capability by ensuring our students are enabled both for innovation and by innovation. (This post was originally published in the U.S. weblog Inside Higher Ed).

Academic & Workplace Partners Collaborating on Innovation Capability (2018.02)

Tom Carey, Andrew Maxwell and Blake Melnick outline the purpose, priorities and partners in our initial Ontario project, supported by a grant from the provincial Ministry of Colleges and Universities Skills Catalyst Fund.

Insights on Academic-Workplace Collaborations for Innovation Capability (2018.09)

Tom, Blake and Andrew highlight the emerging results from this  project, including how our academic and workplace partners have begun to Share Exemplary Resources and Practices for Workplace Innovation and Collaborate on Planning and Adaptation of New Learning Resources.

Developing and Transferring Design Thinking Capability - an in-course Work-Integrated Learning project (2019.03)

Iryna Karaush and Tom Carey describe an experiment to help undergraduate students to transfer their capability in Design Thinking from an academic context to a corporate workplace setting. (Workplace partner Karel Vredenberg supported this  project by arranging use of IBM Enterprise Design Thinking Practitioner Level  learning resources and digital badge).

Adapting Learning Resources across Higher Ed and Workplace Contexts (2019.08)

In this post, Eleanor Pierre and Tom Carey outline the Adaptable Learning Design Model we are using to develop adaptable Learning Resources for workplace innovation capability and to test those resources in different academic and workplace contexts.

Co-developing Capability Specification, Curriculum Maps and Learning Activities (2019.10)

Felix Nobis and  Tom  Carey review some of the ways we are using academic-workplace  collaborations to  specify the Task Competencies needed to contribute effectively to innovation in the workplace and the underlying Capabilities of Knowledge, Skills, Mindsets and Experiences that they require (in the workplace and in our graduates' other roles as community members and global citizens)

Human-Centred Design and Design Thinking in Higher Ed Service Transformation (2019.11)

In this post, Tyrenny Anderson outlined how principles of Design Thinking and Human-Centred Design can be applied in the context of one Higher Education institution’s Service Transformation project.

More posts to come on adaptable learning resources for

• Innovation Adaptation: How Will This  Work  Here?

• Making the ROI Case for an Innovation Project

• Learning to Be Surprised: Reflecting on Practice in Workplace Innovation Projects

“Every Employee” Engagement with Workplace Innovation: A Professional Development Ladder (2021.07)

We describe in this post a way to bridge the perceived gap between the innovation capabilities and experiences across the workplace: a Ladder of Opportunities to progressively build skills, knowledge and mindsets for innovation, allowing employees to choose their own level of engagement a any given time. We also outline results from initial Proof-of-Concept tests and work underway with workplace partners.

Is the Future of Liberal Arts Programs “K-Shaped” (2017.06)

Tom Carey extends the idea of T-Shaped graduates to demonstrate how Workplace Innovation can be a fruitful application domain for the  Ways of Knowing cultivated in Liberal Arts programs

Using Productive Disruption in Higher Education (2018.01)

Jessica Riddell, our WINCan academic partner at Bishop’s University in Quebec and Exec Director of the  Maple  League of Universities, explains why collaboration across institutions and sectors is bound to be disruptive for the partners involved.

How Can a Narrative Perspective Add Value to Innovation (2018.07)

Natasha Lopes and Jennifer Williams, student and faculty members of our B.C. project team, show how one of the Ways of Knowing nurtured in a Literature program can be applied in Workplace Innovation.

The Danger of Fetishizing Failure in the Academy (2018.09)

In this post, Jessica writes about the need to provide safe spaces for students to experience and learn from failure, while exploring the dangers of "normalizing failure without taking a hard look at the system within which it happens".

Demonstrating the Capabilities of B.A. Graduates through Workplace Innovation (2019.01)

Tom and Deanne outline the case for Workplace Innovation – as a human, creative and social process – to find a natural home within programs in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

Needed Now: a Revaluing of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Education (2019.07)

Deanne Gannaway, one  of our WINCan academic partners  in Australia, urges post-secondary educators to reconsider the value of Humanities and Social Science (HASS) Education for the future  of work.

Leveraging a Diverse Academic Collaboration for Capability in Inclusive Workplace Innovation Part II (2023.10)

In previous posts we summarized our rationale for engaging a diverse set of academic institutions to collaborate on developing capability in Inclusive Workplace Innovation. We also highlighted the international recognition for our initial collaboration via our European award for  Innovation and Entrepreneurship Teaching Excellence in September 2022.

This month our scholarly article on that initial collaboration was published in the open-access  European Journal of Workplace Innovation (Vol 8, Issue 1). The Editor’s introduction to the Issue highlights how  its contents reflect a wider diffusion of Workplace Innovation beyond its European origins:

Knowledge Management and Workplace Innovation: a pilot course (2019.03)

Blake Melnick and Allison  Davies outline the  plan for a pilot test integrating two concepts:

• Student partners working alongside their counterparts in Business and Industry to address authentic, complex and forward-looking challenges,

• While  learning about the links between organizations’ capability for knowledge management and their capability for workplace innovation

Q & A about WINCan’s pilot KM and Workplace Innovation course (2019.05)

Allison and Blake discuss some of the issues and insights from the pilot course activities, via excerpts from the course Q & A discussion board.

CMHC Design Challenge (2019.07)

Blake and Allison describe some of the  pilot resources  to support student and workplace learners, and highlight the Design Challenge  provided by workplace partners at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation: How to Ensure Every Canadian has Access to Affordable Housing by 2030

Reflections on Knowledge Management & Workplace Innovation (2019.09)

In this post, Allison summarizes some of the learner experiences in the pilot course via excerpts from interviews with two of our workplace  learners.

Human-Centred Design and Design Thinking in Higher Ed Service Transformation (2019.11)

In this post, Tyrenny Anderson outlined how principles of Design Thinking and Human-Centred Design can be applied in the context of one Higher Education institution’s Service Transformation project.

Project Launch for Beyond the Champion – Strategic Innovation in Higher Education (2020.04)

In a January post, we described a proposed project to adapt recent insights from the corporate sector into our higher education context to allow us to systematically sustain strategic innovation in higher education. We’re happy to announce that we have now “officially” launched this project, with an initial case study from Ontario and other institutions in the loop with strong interest expressed in becoming case study institutions and a project schedule from mid-May through December 2020.

This post has a more academic tone than most of our What We’re Learning posts from WINCan projects – complete with footnotes and the traditional academic note about “more research will be needed…” ! That’s because we wrote it as a chapter abstract proposed for a forthcoming volume in the book series Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning.

Sustaining Strategic Innovation in Teaching and Learning: What Can Higher Education Learn from Corporate Innovation Leaders? (2020.07)

We’ve previously outlined our new project to explore how research insights from corporate sector research could be adapted to guide strategic innovation in higher education. In this post, we’ll consider the research evidence from one stream of research from the corporate sector about sustaining strategic innovation through new management structures and talent development approaches. In subsequent posts, we’ll describe our progress with potential prototype studies to explore adapting some of these insights to sustain strategic innovation for teaching and learning in higher education.

In this post, we summarize three of the research insights on sustaining strategic innovation which caught our interest for the higher education teaching and learning context…and why.

Scenario Prototypes to Test the Adaptability of Insights on Innovation Across Sectors (part 1) (2020.11)

As a sector, higher education is at the low end of innovation rankings. The challenges we face – demographic, technological, political, and pedagogical – will require sustained innovation at a strategic level. Most recently, Josh Kim recommended that higher education look outward for insights on strategic innovation: “Higher education will not figure out its future by only thinking about higher education. We need to look outside academia, and where possible, use these examples to think about our possible higher ed futures.”

To address these challenges by ‘disrupting ourselves’ in higher education, experts in teaching and learning have suggested that lessons learned in the corporate sector could be adapted to the context of higher education teaching and learning. Recent research with Fortune 100 companies in the U.S. has identified exemplars in strategic innovation amongst mature organizations who have institutionalized strategic innovation Beyond the Champion. As noted in our previous WINCan posts about this project, we are exploring whether – and how – we might adapt insights from this corporate sector research to improve and sustain strategic innovation in higher education teaching and learning.

What We’re Learning for the Adaptability of Insights on Strategic Innovation Across Sectors (2021.01)

Here are some highlights from what we learned in the process of creating and analyzing these scenarios as a proof-of-concept tests. Some of the research insights from the corporate sector that we had expected to be useful did provide value in the scenarios, at times in surprising ways. Other research insights did not align with the context of the scenario institutions, although we noted other contexts where they might contribute value. We’ll focus here on the issues in Talent Management for Strategic Innovation which emerged in the scenarios; important insights also arose in the broader area of Governance and Management of Strategic Innovation.

CURRENT PROJECTS

Enabling Inclusive Innovation in Canadian Workplaces (2023.11)

Context: In the previous blog post in this series expanding on results from our recent project for Canada’s Future Skills Centre, we summarized relevant research we applied on government policies and programs to advance Workplace Innovation. There is a much larger body of research on policies and programs to advance the related theme of “Inclusive Innovation”. In this post, we will explore the links between those two policy areas, and highlight research in areas common to both themes (e.g., expanding innovation opportunities in the workplace for equity-seeking groups).

Inclusive Innovation Initiatives at National, Regional and City Levels (2024.01)

In a previous post in this series, we explored a reframing of Workplace Innovation as Inclusive Innovation at the Workplace level. The larger framework of Inclusive Innovation aims to expand the range of people who participate in innovation and who benefit from its impacts.  

The scope of Inclusion Innovation has been expanding to consider the impacts of innovation on the environment we share with other forms of life. Inclusive Innovation has also become a lens through which to expand participants and beneficiaries in global initiatives like the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals:

Adapting Workplace Innovation to Advance Quality of Work in Canada, Part 1 (2022.06a)

We’ll describe in this post our new partnership of experts in Workplace Innovation and four leading organizations who are advancing Workplace Practice and Policy (one pan-Canadian, three regional). With support from Canada’s Future Skills Centre, we will analyze and adapt the research base on Workplace Innovation for Quality of Work – mainly from Europe– to support more innovative, engaging and inclusive workplaces in Canada. We will be assisted throughout by Dr. Peter Totterdill, one of the world’s foremost experts in Workplace Innovation for Quality of Work and Founding Director of Workplace Innovation Europe.

Adapting Workplace Innovation to Advance Quality of Work in Canada, Part 2 (2022.06b)

In this post we’ll describe the specific challenges being tackled by each of the partners who will be working with us to test adaptations of the insights in our Research Synthesis, to meet their needs and contexts (and, more generally, helping us to understand the issues and benefits for adapting European research into Canadian contexts). his both project involves both a synthesis of past research and a set of organizational innovation projects to apply, critique and extend that previous research. We’ll describe in this post the individual focal points for each of our four Field Test sites.Workplace Innovation: From Goals to Gameplans (2022.10)

In this post, we’ll summarize the From Goals to Game Plan process to advance employee-led innovation in our partner organizations, which has emerged  from the cases we have been working on with a set of initial representative workplaces. We’ll also illustrate our own use of such research insights and exemplary practices in developing this framework for two purposes:

• as an organizing structure for our workshops to help partner workplaces to identify where and how they want to advance workplace innovation with their employees

• and later as the organizing framework for two key outputs from the Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work Life project, a Research Adaptation Synthesis and its accompanying illustrative Case Stories from participating workplaces.

Factors that Influence Motivation for Workplace Innovation (Part I) (2022.12)

Recent research by Terry has helped to clarify for us the factors that influence employee motivation to engage with workplace innovation [Soleas 2020, 2021]. This research adapted a common framework used for assessing motivation in the workplace [Flake et al 2015],and included an initial study with 30 recognized Canadian innovators as interviewees. The )resulting prototype survey instrument was then iteratively refined in prototype tests with another 500 Canadians who had been identified as leading innovators in their workplaces.

Factors that Influence Motivation for Workplace Innovation, Part II (2023.02)

In this post, we will present similar reflections re research insights on the remaining three Motivation to Innovate factors identified:

• Innovation Results as an (intrinsic) Incentive: Improving Employee Quality of Work Life 

• Extrinsic Incentives: What is the role of financial or other incentives?

• Reducing the Perceived Costs and Risks of Workplace Innovation

Research-into-Practice Examples to Advance Employee Workplace Innovation (2023.03)

In this post, we will highlight three key collaboration processes between our project team and our workplace partners which enabled their mobilization of research into practice. We will then describe the Research-to-Practice Focus points selected by each workplace in that process, to direct our selection of research insights and exemplary practice for advancing the impact of their employee workplace innovation.

Applying Research-to-Practice Insights on Workplace Innovation: ENWIN’s story (2023.05)

We are in the concluding stages of our research project on Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work, undertaken with  in collaboration with numerous workplace partners across Canada with the support of the Government of Canada’s Future Skills Centre. You can find background info and interim results in the project blog posts, and we will be posting over the next few months on the Results, Implications and Future Directions.

Enhancing Workplace Innovation with Research Insights: the EngServ Story (2023.05)

Our previous post this month contained highlights from one of our workplace partners who successfully advanced employee-led workplace innovation in their organization by adapting  Research-to-Practice insights on Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work from Europe. In this companion post, our team members share highlights from a second workplace partner, EngServ, (a Calgary-based Engineering Services company). Stephen Cohos is a professional engineer and Innovation Project Coordinator. Bios for our WINCan team authors are available here.

Inclusive Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work: Research Project Results (2023.06)

We are now in the final stages of writing up results from our most recent  applied research project with workplace partners – sponsored in part by the Government of Canada’s Future Skills Centre. We focused on adapting European research insights and exemplary practices on employee-led Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work into Canadian contexts. Our goal was to determine the applicability of these strategies for scaling up workplace innovation across Canada and to explore supportive public policy to  accelerate these advances. 

This post summarizes the major results from the project, excerpted from the final Project Report.

Research-To-Practice Insights on Digital Transformation in the Nordic Forestry Sector (2023.06)

In a  previous post on Results from our research project on Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work, we mentioned the one workplace partner for whom our initial effort to provide a targeted research synthesis was not successful (“ForestCo” in B.C.). They requested a research synthesis with examples of workplace innovation specific to their industry sector. However, our research did not identify insights on inclusive workplace innovation specific to the Forestry context (for reasons explained in that previous post).

A Living Labs Collaboration within Regional Workforce Development to Advance Capability for Workplace Innovation (2023.07)

In a previous blog post reporting the Results of our research project on Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work, we noted three Future Directions where further work is needed (beyond the Research-to-Practice knowledge translation processes which were our focus with the individual workplace partners in that project). In this post we explore the first of those Future Directions: using existing collaborations for regional workforce development as the focal point for supporting research-informed advances in employee-led workplace innovation, by adapting a Living Labs model as the structure for ongoing collaborations.

Work-Integrated Learning Placements as Catalysts for Research Adaptation (2023.08)

In a previous post summarizing the Results of our recent project on Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work, we described Research-to-Practice Case Story experiences with our workplace partners. These experiences demonstrated how research insights from Europe – and some from Canada – can be adapted to advance employee-led workplace innovation in Canadian workplaces. We also noted some of the Implications to be addressed if we are to successfully scale up those interactions with a broader range of workplace partners.

Insights from European Research on Public Policy and Programs to Advance Workplace Innovation (2023.09)

In a previous blog post reporting the Results of our research project on Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work, we noted several recommendations regarding  Future Directions where further work is needed (beyond the Research-to-Practice knowledge translation processes which were our focus with the individual workplace partners in that project). In forming those  recommendations, we also analyzed research insights and exemplary practices from Europe on public policy and programs to advance workplace innovation – that is, we were ourselves engaged in research-to-practice adaptations for our Canadian context. In this post we review some of the experiences from Europe we found to be most relevant.

Workplace Innovation for Quality of Work: Research Synthesis and Recommendations on Adaptation for Canadian Contexts

The full results from our 2022-23 applied research project with Canada’s Future Skills Centre are now available on their website.

We’ve copied below the Executive Summary, as well as the Key Insights from the project. You can also download the full report, or read more on the FSC Site for these topics:

Case-Swapping to Adapt Resources on Workplace Innovation Across Contexts (2021.04)

In one of our previous WINCan projects, a collaboration between workplace and academic partners to share and adapt learning resources on Workplace Innovation, we developed a case-based instructional design model intended to foster resource sharing and adaptability. In a new project launching this week, we’ll be testing those ideas, by creating new online learning resources to incorporate Workplace Innovation concepts and activities into a course at an Ontario higher education institution…while in parallel working with another higher education institution (in Alberta) and an Ontario workplace partner on pilot studies to assess how those resources could be adapted for their specific contexts.

“Every Employee” Engagement with Workplace Innovation: A Professional Development Ladder (2021.07)

We describe in this post a way to bridge the perceived gap between the innovation capabilities and experiences across the workplace: a Ladder of Opportunities to progressively build skills, knowledge and mindsets for innovation, allowing employees to choose their own level of engagement a any given time. We also outline results from initial Proof-of-Concept tests and work underway with workplace partners.

Why Accountancy as a Test Case for the Workplace Innovation Ladder of Opportunities? (2021.08)

In a previous post, we outlined our prototype framework for a Ladder of Opportunities for professional development in for individual capability to engage with innovation in the workplace. We have been piloting, evaluating and refining this framework in two ways:

• Proof-of-concept test cases in specific work domains, to identify how well the framework fits with what we know about workplace innovation in that domain and to identify the context-specific issues to be addressed for its productive use in domain-specific professional development for workplace innovation.

• Ongoing experiments to apply the framework in higher education learning experiences, to develop capability in workplace innovation across a range of potential work domains

In this post, we describe our use of the Accountancy work domain as an initial proof-of-concept test case for the first of these evaluations.

Workplace Innovation in Accountancy: Job Crafting and Innovation Adaptation (2021.09)

In this post we describe specific examples for workplace innovation in the Accountancy work domain for the first two elements of our prototype framework: Job Crafting and Innovation Adaptation. A future post will add examples for Design Innovation and Intrepreneurship.

Case Stories of Job Crafting in Accountancy (2021.10)

Since Accountancy is a highly-regulated profession many people – including some accountants and higher education students in accountancy – have the impression that Job Crafting is a limited option within the profession. Our crafting examples here, from Jennifer and Candice, demonstrate some of the many ways that Job Crafting is commonly utilized by accountants… and how it will be needed even more as some of the changes in the profession outlined in our previous post come to fruition.

Workplace Innovation in Accountancy: Innovation Adaptation in Auditing (2021.12)

In previous posts, we outlined our prototype workplace innovation Ladder of Professional Development Opportunities and provided illustrations from the work domain of Accountancy for the first two opportunities (Job Crafting and Innovation Adaptation), along with a demonstration of how innovative developments in Accountancy practice have opened up new opportunities for employee-led Workplace Innovation by accountants.

In this post we follow up with examples from the specific Accountancy subfield of Auditing, to illustrate the dual goals of employee-led Workplace Innovation (improving organizational effectiveness and quality of work life), adaptation of innovative accounting practices from sources outside the firm, and the development of new innovator roles for accountants in Audit.

Design Innovation for Accountancy (2022.01)

This post presents the third element of our proof-of-concept test of our prototype professional development Ladder of Opportunities in Workplace Innovation through identifying suitable case stories in the work domain of Accountancy. These tests were intended to identify how well the framework fits with what we know about workplace innovation in a specific workplace domain and to identify some of the context-specific issues to be addressed for the framework to be used productively.

Intrapreneurship as Workplace Innovation in Accountancy (2022.02)

This post presents our final proof-of-concept test of our prototype professional development Ladder of Opportunities in Workplace Innovation in the work domain of Accountancy. These tests were intended to identify how well the framework fits with what we know about workplace innovation in a specific workplace domain and to identify some of the context-specific issues to be addressed for the framework to be used productively. Previous posts looked at Job Crafting, Innovation Adaptation (including specific examples from the Audit area) and Design Innovation (with a focus on Design Thinking in Accountancy).

Adaptable Learning Resources for Workplace Innovation: What have We Learned (part I) (2022.04)

One year ago, we began a WINCan project to explore how we could create resources, activities and experiences for adaptable teaching and learning resources which Higher Education institutions could adapt for teaching and learning for Workplace Innovation.

We were basing our project on an Instructional Design for adaptability developed in a previous Ontario-based project with six Ontario colleges and universities and six workplace partners from the corporate and public sectors. We also applied what we had learned in working with our collaborating institution in Melbourne (Australia) in co-developing their pioneering course unit on Understanding Workplace Innovation.

In this series of two posts, we will focus on what we’ve learned over the last year from adapting teaching and learning resources for Workplace Innovation in Higher Education. Our aim is to help Canadian institutions move toward the goal of “Every Graduate Can be an Innovation Enabler” with flexible resources and formats

Adaptable Learning Resources for Workplace Innovation: What Have We Learned? (part II) (2022.04)

In part I of this two-part series, we described the context and content of reusable course modules to introduce higher education students to Employee-Led Innovation in the Workplace, and how the modules were deployed in a course unit at a university School of Business.

In this follow-on post, we will also explore our initial methods for assessing the development of learner capability for workplace innovation, including use of a new workplace tool for assessing aspects of innovation mindsets.

Developing Graduate Capability in Workplace Innovation is Recognized in Europe’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Teaching Excellence Awards (2022.07)

Great news: we found out this week that WINCan and two of our academic partners have been short-listed as finalists for the 2022 Innovation and Entrepreneurship Teaching Excellence Award (based in Europe – this is the 8th annual award). In September, our team presents at the final competition round in Cyprus – virtually, from our home bases in Canada and Australia.

What We’re Learning about Understanding Workplace Innovation at Monash Arts (2022.08)

In our post in this weblog last month, we highlighted our inclusion amongst the finalists for the 2022 Innovation and Entrepreneurship Teaching Excellence award in Europe. One element of this final stage was the preparation of a book chapter to be included in the finalists’ Anthology of Case Studies to be published as part of the award process.

WINCan Team Wins Breakthrough Award for Teaching Excellence in Innovation (2022.09)

We are delighted to announce that the innovations in teaching and learning developed by our WINCan team and our academic partners in Australia and Canada have been recognized in the 2022 Innovation and Entrepreneurship Teaching Excellence award. The final stage of thisinternational competition was on September 16 th , hosted by Neapolis University in Cyprus as part of the 17 th annual European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Leveraging a Diverse Academic Collaboration for Capability in Inclusive Workplace Innovation Part II (2023.10)

In previous posts we summarized our rationale for engaging a diverse set of academic institutions to collaborate on developing capability in Inclusive Workplace Innovation. We also highlighted the international recognition for our initial collaboration via our European award for  Innovation and Entrepreneurship Teaching Excellence in September 2022.

This month our scholarly article on that initial collaboration was published in the open-access  European Journal of Workplace Innovation (Vol 8, Issue 1). The Editor’s introduction to the Issue highlights how  its contents reflect a wider diffusion of Workplace Innovation beyond its European origins:

Co-Developing Capability Specification, Curriculum Maps and Learning Activities (2019.10)

One unique aspect of our WINCan work is experimentation with new ways for academic and workplace partners to collaborate for Specification, Curriculum and Learning Activities for Capability in Workplace Innovation. This post from Felix and  Tom illustrates one possible approach, applied in our Melbourne project.

Introducing Our New WINCan-related Initiative in Australia (2019.12)

Monash University – Australia’s largest – is adapting ideas and insights from WINCan’s Canadian work as a strategic initiative within the Faculty of Arts. Their goal is to develop capability for B.A. graduates to contribute distinctive value in current and future workplaces – capabilities that leverage the disciplinary Ways of Knowing from Humanities, Social Sciences and Performing Arts disciplines and also contribute distinctive value in graduates’ other roles as community members and global citizens.

Three Key Ideas for Integrating Interdisciplinary Ways of Knowing in Workplace Innovation (2020.03)

In this post, Tom and the Melbourne team leaders (Felix, Sarah and Vicki) share some of their key ideas:

• Students can engage with Workplace  Innovation  examples and issues in teaching and learning experiences from multiple disciplinary areas of study.

• Work-Integrated Learning  opportunities in Human-Centred Workplace Innovation can support  students in integrating  their disciplinary ways of knowing into their innovation capability.

Revisiting our definition of Workplace Innovation (2020.05)

We’ve been creating resources for our first course unit in Monash Uni’s Workplace Innovation option, to go live with a pilot cohort in August. That’s led to a new working definition for Workplace Innovation:

Workplace innovation is the social process of mobilizing new ideas to create better work.

Here’s our initial drill-down on the words and phrases, to help students explore what it means for them:

An Innovation On-Ramp in an Arts Faculty with Interdisciplinary Learning (2020.09)

A wonderful pilot group of keen students has been working with us this term to create an initial course unit providing both a conceptual overview and practical experience with Workplace Innovation. That initial unit, ATS2211 Understanding Workplace Innovation, is a prerequisite for the follow-up work-integrated learning course unit with a workplace innovation project team.

… In this post, we’ll describe two initial elements of the course unit design which demonstrate how project work in the course unit addresses the key goal of our workplace partners: Every Employee Can Engage with Innovation in the Workplace. Those initial tasks are in Job Crafting and Innovation Adaptation. In our next post, we’ll describe additional elements of the learning design which provide experience as representative users in Design Thinking projects.

The Business Case for Work-Integrated Learning in Workplace Innovation (2020.10)

We have reached an important milestone in our WINCan “Wildly Important Goal” for higher education programs – ensuring that Every Graduate Can Be an Innovation-Enabler in the workplace (and in their other roles as community members and global citizens). Ta-da: the first offering of our foundation course unit on Understanding Workplace Innovation: Concepts and Cases concludes this week, thanks to our wonderful partners at Monash Arts in Melbourne.

More Than Innovation: WINCan’s Contributions to Scholarly Research (2021.05)

Interview of Anahita Baregheh, Research Team Director for the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada, WINCan website editor about the contributions of the WINCan Team to scholarly research including conference presentations, journal articles, and book chapters.

For those of you familiar with startup jargon, this was our Minimum Viable Product project test with real students (and followed our Proof-of-Concept studies in B.C. and prototyping work with workplace partners in Ontario). Our next few blog posts will highlight what we – and our students – have learned from this experience and where we’ll be taking this endeavour next.

Developing Graduate Capability in Workplace Innovation is Recognized in Europe’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Teaching Excellence Awards (2022.07)

Great news: we found out this week that WINCan and two of our academic partners have been short-listed as finalists for the 2022 Innovation and Entrepreneurship Teaching Excellence Award (based in Europe – this is the 8th annual award). In September, our team presents at the final competition round in Cyprus – virtually, from our home bases in Canada and Australia.

What We’re Learning about Understanding Workplace Innovation at Monash Arts (2022.08)

In our post in this weblog last month, we highlighted our inclusion amongst the finalists for the 2022 Innovation and Entrepreneurship Teaching Excellence award in Europe. One element of this final stage was the preparation of a book chapter to be included in the finalists’ Anthology of Case Studies to be published as part of the award process.

WINCan Team Wins Breakthrough Award for Teaching Excellence in Innovation (2022.09)

Collaborating on Workplace Innovation Capability in ‘The Future of the B.A.’ (2022.11)

Our course units in Faculties of Arts demonstrate the feasibility of enhancing B.A. programs to develop student capability for workplace innovation, extending other generic capabilities for employability currently being developed in those programs [Causevic 2022]. In this post, we address two issues about such B.A. program enhancements, as raised with us by postsecondary academic staff in B.A. programs which do not have a specialist vocational or professional focus (e.g., those labelled in Australia as a “generalist B.A.” [Gannaway & Sheppard 2019] and in North America as “Liberal Arts” programs).Leveraging a Diverse Academic Collaboration for Capability in Inclusive Workplace Innovation Part II (2023.10)

In previous posts we summarized our rationale for engaging a diverse set of academic institutions to collaborate on developing capability in Inclusive Workplace Innovation. We also highlighted the international recognition for our initial collaboration via our European award for  Innovation and Entrepreneurship Teaching Excellence in September 2022.

This month our scholarly article on that initial collaboration was published in the open-access  European Journal of Workplace Innovation (Vol 8, Issue 1). The Editor’s introduction to the Issue highlights how  its contents reflect a wider diffusion of Workplace Innovation beyond its European origins.

Blake Melnick, WINCan's co-Principal Catalyst (Workplace Partnerships), hosts a podcast exploring a wide range of topics. We've listed here the episodes of particular relevance for Innovation in Canada. You can find out more about the focus and topics of For What It's Worth with Blake Melnick in this podcast trailer, Ideas for a Changing World

The Digital Dark Age - Dag Spicer

The exponential advances in digital technologies over the next few years, could make many of our personal histories and existing digital artifacts inaccessible, leading us into “digital dark age” in which our civilization’s most critical knowledge is at risk due to digital technology itself. Are there solutions to ensure that the cultural heritage and human knowledge created today will be available to future generations? 

My guest is Dag Spicer, Senior Curator of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View California in the heart of the Silicon Valley, the world's first and largest computer museum.

July 30, 2020: The Digital Dark Age – Part 1 

August 5, 2020: The Digital Dark Age – Part 2

Comes a Time – with Guest Hugh Segal

Comes a time when, as a result of unprecedented events, we need to consider change at the systemic level. The Pandemic has “laid bare” many problems within our society, and inequities among citizens, which we now must take responsibility for addressing. The pandemic has illustrated most acutely the growing socio-economic divide - The impact of COVID 19 has been particularly devastating on the poor and the ethnic minorities in our society. 

The future of our economy is at best uncertain - with mounting job losses, businesses shuttering across the country; the changing nature of work and school; the shifting economic and political relationships between, and amongst nations; the mounting climate crisis. These are big, complex challenges requiring us to engage in social innovation and to consider bold ideas to protect the health and well-being of our citizens and our nation as a whole. One such idea we need to seriously consider is the implementation of Basic Income for Canada.

Our guest for these two episodes is Hugh Segal, renowned political strategist, author, commentator, academic and former senator. He is also the recognized champion of a Universal Basic Income for Canada.

Nov 26, 2020: Comes a Time – Part 1

Dec 4, 2020: Comes a Time – Part 2Many faces of Innovation, with guest Dr. Thomas Carey

These three episodes are designed to make innovation more understandable and accessible. In order to create systemic innovation in Canada, we need to focus on ensuring that every graduate is innovation capable, and that every employee is able to contribute to innovation within their respective organizations, systematically increasing Canada's capacity and capability for innovation... an imperative, like never before. Our guest is Dr. Thomas Carey, WINCan’s co-Principal Catalyst (Academic Partnerships) and a former Professor and Associate VP at the University of Waterloo.

June 24, 2020: The Many Faces of Innovation part 1

December 1, 2021: The Many Faces of Innovation part 2

December 9, 2021:  The Many Faces of Innovation part 3

Building Back Better: A Post Pandemic Recovery Model with guest Floyd Marinescu

One of the prevalent themes which has emerged during episodes of For What It’s Worth has been the socioeconomic divide - the increasing gap between rich and poor as a root cause of social unrest  and economic uncertainty. Our guest for this  episode is Floyd Marinescu, CEO of C4media , a Toronto-based high-tech company focused on “helping software development teams adopt new technologies and practices”.

Floyd is also the founder of UBIWorks, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to demonstrating the desirability, feasibility and viability of a Universal Basic Income in Canada. In late December 2020 , UBIWorks released an independent economic report commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis which illustrates how Canada can address poverty and the socioeconomic divide, while also kick starting the economy post pandemic.

Feb 4, 2021: Building Back Better with a Universal Basic Income

Knowledge is the Commodity, with guest Praveen Andivasu

Praveen Andivasu served as KPMG's Head of Collaboration, Knowledge Management and Change Management - Global Marketing and Corporate Affairs. Prior to joining KPMG, Praveen served as the Associate Vice President and Head, Training Capability Development for Vodafone in Mumbai, India and Assistant Vice-President and Learning Leader, Retail Consumer Finance for General Electric in the U.S.

With the Global Pandemic as a backdrop, Praveen discusses the need to be agile, shifting and aligning KM priorities to address the emergent business challenges, to ensure risk mitigation, and business continuity, in the event of further lock downs or restrictions to the Firm's day to day business practices; Enabling better online business development; empowering client services with the information and knowledge necessary to solve emergent client business issues; Enhancing virtual collaborative environments to support remote learning and work, while improving client engagements; Supporting employee led innovation through improved knowledge flows, resulting in new product offerings and well as improved time to market for an organization's existing products and services, and finally, to establish an easily accessible, one stop shop, for a Firm's global, institutional information and knowledge. 

Feb 18, 2021: Knowledge is the Commodity, Part 1

Feb 25, 2021: Knowledge is the Commodity Part 2

Industry 4.0: Accelerating an Evolution in Employee Capability and Institutional Agility (2017.08)

In this article, originally posted in Academica Forum, Thomas Carey and KPU Vice-President Salvador Ferreras discuss how educational institutions are and need to respond to the rapid acceleration of “Industry 4.0”. The rapid pace of change will require our educational institutions – from primary to post-secondary – to revisit how we can best foster innovation, agility and adaptability to a new industrial and economic reality.

Innovation and Indigenous Ways of Knowing (2017.11)

In this post we highlight sample resources we discovered that showed promise in helping us address these goals. These came from multiple research areas, which we characterized under the following headings:

• Indigenous Ways of Knowing and “Indigenous-Minded Innovation” as a Social Process

• Research evidence on Indigenous Entrepreneurship

• Research evidence on innovation within specific indigenous communities

• Exemplary practices for incorporating Indigenous Ways of Knowing into higher ed programs

Applying New Ways of Thinking in Future Work Tasks: An Industry 4.0 Example (2018.03)

We know that as the future of work and workplace continues to evolve at a fast pace, our graduates will need to adapt to working with new knowledge, new knowledge practices and formats, and new work roles and structures. While we can’t anticipate the form and timing of these changes, we can consider some that are already apparent and how our academic institution might adapt to better prepare learners for change and innovation.

Announcing Workplace Innovation Canada Incorporated (WINCan Inc.) (2019.01)

The WINCan initiative – Workplace Innovation Network for Canada – began in 2015. Tom Carey, former AVP at the University of Waterloo and Blake Melnick, CEO/CKO of the Knowledge Management Institute of Canada (KMIC) met to discuss Canada’s poor track record of innovation relative to other developed countries, and the present ability of post-secondary institutions to meet the demands of a workforce facing exponential change:

Job Crafting for Industry 4.0 is Employee-Driven Innovation (2019.06)

We hear on a regular basis from our workplace partners that our graduates will need to adapt to Jobs of the Future by working with knowledge that doesn’t yet exist, using knowledge practices and formats that don’t yet exist, in work roles and structures that don’t yet exist. How can we help learners to develop the capabilities needed in order to engage with, make adaptations to and even lead the way on the changes that we can’t yet anticipate?

Three New WINCAN-Related Initiatives Brewing in Ontario - Part 1 (2020.01)

Anahita, Tom and Blake describe in this post a new 2020 WINCan initiative to explore how recent research advances from the U.S. – in understanding how to sustain strategic innovation – could be adapted for application in the higher ed and workplace sectors.

Three New WINCAN-Related Initiatives Brewing in Ontario - Part 2 (2020.02)

Anahita, Tom and Blake describe in this post a new 2020 WINCan initiative to explore how recent research advances from the U.S. – in understanding how to sustain strategic innovation – could be adapted for application in the higher ed and workplace sectors.

Revisiting Our Definition of Workplace Innovation (2020.05)

We’ve been creating resources for our first course unit in Monash Uni’s Workplace Innovation option, to go live with a pilot cohort in August. That’s led to a new working definition for Workplace Innovation:

Workplace innovation is the social process of mobilizing new ideas to create better work.

Here’s our initial drill-down on the words and phrases, to help students explore what it means for them:

Welcome Back EUWIN! (2020.06)

We were delighted to see the announcement of “a new takeoff for EUWIN”, including a relaunch of the EUWIN Bulletin and a revitalized Knowledge Bank. In this post, we’ve highlighted a few of their new directions, so that you can see the topics and issues being explored.

Proposed New University in Ontario Highlights Workplace Innovation in Its Academic Strategy “Green Paper” (2020.07)

The Ministry of Colleges and Universities in Ontario released last week its Policy Framework for a Major Capacity Expansion in the province’s college and university sectors. While we knew this was coming at some point, it is a pleasant surprise to see them get this out the door while expending so much effort on dealing with the COVID-19 crisis. (But the crisis is not ignored in the Policy Framework, which notes that in the short term “Given the current fiscal situation, proponents are encouraged to bring forward proposals that do not require provincial capital or operating funding in the near term” !)

Mobilizing Research at the Intersection of Innovation and Human Resource Management (2020.08)

For many organizations, employee-led innovation has become a key element in responding to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. In preparation for our life “beyond lockdown”, an initiative led by Workplace Innovation Europe is supporting workplaces who want to build on this momentum for employee-driven innovation, as a key organizational strategy for thriving post-COVID. In European research, Employee-Led Workplace Innovation has been shown to improve organizational performance and quality of work for employees, with a strong evidence base emerging on how to achieve these complementary goals …

Looking Back at 2020 Milestones and Looking Forward to 2021 New Ventures (2020.12)

As we head into 2021, we thought it would be a good time to celebrate our WINCan accomplishments in 2020 and look forward to some of our new ventures. One of the new initiatives we had on our exploration list for 2020 a year ago has blossomed, some of our ongoing projects reached important milestones, and we also have new ventures now emerging.