San Francisco 2010
The Era of Smart, Connected and Human-Centered Innovation
Introduction and context
The 2010 San Francisco seminar marked a clear academic shift. After several years of technology, digitalization and multichannel at the center, the focus now turned to service innovation, creativity and human interaction. The OECD report The New Nature of Innovation formed the backdrop for the entire program. Where previous years were about digital channels and tools, 2010 was about how people, organizations and technology interact in the development of value-added services.
The OECD introduced a new understanding of innovation as something that occurs not only in laboratories and research environments, but also in the encounter between users, society and technology. It emphasized networks, openness, knowledge sharing and experimentation as characteristics of the new innovation economy.
Throughout the week, a common thread ran from design thinking and collective creativity to business model innovation and smarter organizations. The seminar reflected a global shift: We moved from developing products to designing experiences and systems – from things we sell, to services we create together.
Program overview
The program was composed of speakers from academia, business, and technology, and represented a unique blend of research, practice, and strategy:
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OECD – The New Nature of Innovation
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Stephen Ezell (ITIF/Peer Insight) – Service Innovation & The Age of Smart Services
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Tim Brown (IDEO) – Design Thinking
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Teresa Amabile (Harvard Business Review) – How to Kill Creativity
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Ed Catmull (Pixar) – Fostering Collective Creativity
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Steven Kowalski (Genentech) – Corporate Innovation and Creativity
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General Electric (GE) – How GE is Disrupting Itself
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IBM – Smarter Planet and Innovation Leadership
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Kirthi Kalyanam (Santa Clara University) – Making Business Sense of Social Media
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Alexander Osterwalder – Business Model Canvas
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Johnson, Christensen & Kagermann – Reinventing Your Business Model
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Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim & Mauborgne) – Value Innovation and Strategic Clarity
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Swisscom – Service Champion Journey
Main academic topics
Service innovation and the smart economy
Stephen Ezell from ITIF described how economies around the world are moving from goods production to services. He introduced the concept of Smart Services – services that combine data, technology and human insight to create ongoing value for the user.
Ezell showed how IT is no longer just a support function, but a catalyst for innovation.
Design Thinking and human-centered innovation
Design Thinking and Human-Centered Innovation Tim Brown from IDEO highlighted design thinking as a method and mindset. Through empathy, prototyping and interdisciplinary work, complex problems can be broken down into understandable and tangible solutions. He referred to the Kaiser Permanente case, where redesigning hospital processes led to a better patient experience and higher efficiency.
Creativity, culture and leadership
Teresa Amabile pointed out how structure, control, and the wrong culture can kill creativity. She introduced the concept of intrinsic motivation – what makes people create because they want to, not because they have to.
Ed Catmull from Pixar followed up with experiences from the film industry: “The job of management is not to prevent mistakes, but to build the capacity to recover from them.” At Pixar, it was shown how trust and security are crucial to creative success.
Social media and collective intelligence
Kirthi Kalyanam showed how businesses can understand and leverage social media as an ecosystem for attention and trust.
HP Labs (Bernardo Huberman) elaborated on how collective intelligence works: people seek not just information, but confirmation through others. Thus, attention becomes a currency in itself.
Business model innovation and strategic renewal
Johnson, Christensen, and Kagermann introduced a model for how companies can rethink their business model – especially when new technology changes the rules of the game.
Alexander Osterwalder followed up with the Business Model Canvas, which provides a visual framework for innovation.
GE and IBM illustrated how large organizations can innovate from within. GE through reverse innovation – development from emerging markets – and IBM through the Smarter Planet initiative, where data and societal missions merged.
Case studies
Pixar – collective creativity in practice
Pixar stood as a textbook example of an organization where creativity is systematic and structured, but never bureaucratic. Catmull described how the leadership role is about protecting the creative processes from fear.
Every film goes through hundreds of mistakes before it succeeds – and that's exactly what makes it good.
GE – “Disrupt yourself before someone else does”
GE challenged its own mindset. Instead of developing advanced technology in the United States and then exporting it, the company began creating cheaper, simpler solutions in China and India—and then bringing them back to the West. This was called reverse innovation.
IBM – Smarter Planet
IBM presented its Smarter Planet initiative, a global framework where technology is used to solve societal challenges: health, transportation, energy, water and education. Their message was clear: “Innovation happens when we connect people, processes and data – not just machines.”
Google – the innovation machine
Google shared lessons learned in sustaining innovation at scale: an open sharing culture, the 20 percent rule, small autonomous teams, and data-driven experimentation. The combination of freedom and structure creates what Google calls “a constant beta culture.”
Reflections and discussion:
The seminar clearly showed that innovation is no longer a niche field, but a discipline that must be managed and measured across sectors.
Common features from all lectures:
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Innovation occurs at the intersection of people and systems.
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Technology is the tool – not the goal.
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Culture and management are the real differentiating factors.
Participants discussed how public institutions could adopt the same principles. The idea of “user as co-producer” was highlighted as central to municipal and state services as well.
International perspectives
The OECD report formed a strong international framework.
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Europe was described as more consensus-driven, but also slower in decision-making processes.
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The United States excelled with a culture of experimentation, a high risk appetite, and a willingness to fail quickly.
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Asia, especially Korea and Japan, combined discipline and long-term thinking.
These differences were not considered weaknesses, but rather different models of innovation. The goal was not to copy Silicon Valley, but to understand what makes different ecosystems productive and humane.
What do we take home with us?
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Design Thinking works in all industries – not just in design.
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Creativity must be guided, not controlled.
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The user is not a data point, but a participant.
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Large organizations can innovate if they dare to experiment.
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Business models are living documents, not static plans.
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Social media is about relationships, not advertising.
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Data and insights must be used to build trust.
Relevance today
Much of what was discussed in San Francisco 2010 has later proven to be ahead of its time.
The principles of Design Thinking and Smarter Planet today underpin everything from digital service development in municipalities to strategies for sustainability and artificial intelligence. In the Norwegian context, we see clear parallels: the public sector has adopted the methodology from IDEO and OECD – user journeys, co-creation and interdisciplinary teams are now standard in digitalization projects.
The lessons from 2010 remind us that the future is not just shaped by technology, but by human empathy and interaction. It is still what separates good services from bad, and societies of trust from societies of fear.
Peder Inge Furseth
Peder Inge Furseth was a central academic driving force behind the San Francisco seminars and helped make the meeting with Silicon Valley relevant for Norwegian and European businesses. Through his role as professor at BI and as academic director of the program, he helped the participants put the lectures into a larger context – where technology, innovation, business development and people had to be seen in context.
In San Francisco, participants met entrepreneurs, researchers, technology leaders and investors from some of the world's most innovative environments. Furseth's strength was his ability to connect these experiences to practical challenges and opportunities in Norwegian businesses. He helped translate Silicon Valley's ideas and working methods into a Nordic context where collaboration, trust and long-term value creation are strong.
Throughout the entire seminar series, he was an important bridge builder between research, business and technology. For many participants, he therefore became more than a professional leader – he also became a mentor who inspired new thinking about innovation, digitalization and commercialization.
Read more about Peder Inge Furseth here
From studies and seminars to today's professional universe
The studies, seminars and field trips documented on this page are part of the knowledge base behind The Invisible Capital. Topics such as customers, technology, innovation, digitalization and value creation have followed developments over several decades – but the disciplines have also continued to develop.
At The Invisible Capital, we are therefore continuing to work on these questions in our own subject series. Here, we connect previous theory, research and experiences with newer knowledge, new technologies and today's challenges for people and businesses.
Innovation
Innovation is not just about new ideas. Value is created when knowledge, technology and ideas are developed into products, services, processes, organizational forms and business models that are actually used. The series on innovation goes from Schumpeter to modern innovation research and covers, among other things, incremental, radical, disruptive, open and user-driven innovation.
→ Explore the Innovation Series
The customer
The customer is not just the recipient of what the business produces. In a competitive market, the customer is a crucial determinant of whether the business actually succeeds in creating value. The series about the customer goes deeper into customer orientation, customer insight, customer experience, satisfaction, loyalty, trust and the encounter between people.
→ Read the customer series
Value creation
What does it really mean to create value – and who creates it? The series on value creation moves from economic theory and key researchers to a broader understanding of how people, expertise, institutions, businesses and the public sector contribute to value creation.
→ Read the series on value creation
Digitization
Digitalization has evolved from stand-alone technologies to a fundamental part of how businesses work and create value. The Digitalization from A–Z series follows developments through internet, web, e-commerce, search, UX, social, mobile, omnichannel, cloud, data, platforms and digital transformation – up to today’s AI First developments.
→ Read the series Digitization from A–Z
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence represents the next chapter in digital evolution. In our own AI universe, we investigate how artificial intelligence works, how AI finds and uses information, how it evaluates sources and websites, and what the development can mean for people, businesses, and value creation.
→ Go to the articles about artificial intelligence
Recommended literature
Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation
Tim Brown shows how design thinking can be used to create innovation, services and business models with people at the center. The book explains how creativity, experimentation and interdisciplinary collaboration can help businesses develop better products, services and customer experiences in a digital economy.
