Cross-disciplinary themes and key insights from
San Francisco Seminar 2008
Commercializing Innovation – From Research to Global Market
The 2008 San Francisco program was more than four individual days of workshops. It was a holistic encounter with an evolving innovation ecosystem—just as digitization, platform economics, customer experience, and global organization began to converge.
This section brings together the most important subject topics across all lectures, company visits and academic contributions. Here the whole picture becomes visible: what 2008 was really about, and why the seminar hit a global turning point.
A. Innovation as an ecosystem –
The Silicon Valley Model (Berkeley)
San Francisco 2008 provided a rare insight into how innovation occurs when academia, capital, culture and entrepreneurship function as an interconnected system.
The core of the Berkeley model is:
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Talent mobility: people move quickly between projects, fields of expertise and companies.
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Access to capital: venture capital that expects growth, not short-term profitability.
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Failure culture: “fail fast” as a learning mechanism, not as a sanction.
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Academia as an engine: universities that produce ideas, networks and entrepreneurs. Network-based structures: innovation happens in relationships, not in departments.
This mindset characterizes large parts of the seminar — even when the topics are about technology, customer experience, or outsourcing.
The Silicon Valley model is the foundation of everything.
B. The rise of the platform economy – Google's logic (early Web 2.0)
2008 represents an early moment in the history of the platform economy. Google wasn't just a search engine — it was an ecosystem under construction.
Common characteristics of the platform logic Google presented:
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Network effects: the more users, the more value.
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Data-driven innovation: services are improved by user data, not by features.
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Product portfolios that are related: Search → Ads → Maps → Gmail → Video.
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The 70–20–10 model: structured experimentation with built-in risk.
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Scalable platforms: technology that makes marginal cost close to zero.
This was a valuable insight for the participants: platform logic was in its infancy. Global dominance for Google, Facebook, and Amazon had not yet been established—but the seeds had been planted.
2008 was the year when the platform economy went from theory to practice.
C. The new customer experience – visual communication, data and global organization
While Google represented the data-driven platform, Adobe Scene7, Forrester Research, and 24/7 Customer showed three other dimensions of the same development:
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Visual Experience (Adobe Scene7)
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360° product images
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zoom and configuration
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rich media in e-commerce
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This was the precursor to today's product visualization in almost all major online stores.
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Consumer data and multichannel behavior (comScore / EMC²)
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customers move seamlessly between physical and digital commerce
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research online → purchase offline
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early click-to-brick economy
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This was the starting point for omnichannel thinking.
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Global customer dialogue and outsourcing (24/7 Customer
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process innovation, not just cost cutting
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CLM: Customer Lifecycle Management
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global delivery with high quality
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This laid the foundation for customer service later becoming a strategic function.
The common thread is clear:
Customer experience became a system, not a channel.
D. Omnichannel's predecessors – from multichannel to cross-channel
IBM Almaden, Oxford and Santa Clara University drew the digital lines further beyond platform and experience:
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Multichannel: parallel presence without integration
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Cross-channel: interaction between channels
Early omnichannel: continuity in the buying journey
IBM introduced four Cs that became industry standards:
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Choice – the customer chooses the channel
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Consistency – the same experience regardless of channel
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Context – relevant information at the right time
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Continuity – seamless movement through channels
This later became the foundation for modern CRM, loyalty programs, digital synchronization, and customer experience architecture.
In 2008 this was new.
Today, it is the foundation of almost all major brands.
E. Global innovation cultures – USA, Europe and the Nordics
San Francisco 2008 also showed that innovation is shaped by society:
United States:
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high risk
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venture capital
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rapid iterations
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commercialization before predictability
Europe:
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structure
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regulation
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processes
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more focus on quality and stability
The Nordics:
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trust
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cooperation
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flat structures
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small markets that allow room for experimentation
This three-way division made it possible to reflect on how Norwegian and Scandinavian innovative power stands out.
Svein-Egil Nielsen (Innovation Norway) described the Nordics as: “Small markets that can test, learn and scale faster than large economies.”
F. The integrated understanding – what ties all the subject topics together?
When we look at the entire seminar together, the connection is clear:
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Platforms (Google)
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Customer Experience (Adobe Scene7, Forrester, 24/7)
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Global organization (outsourcing, digital value chains)
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Innovation ecosystems (Berkeley/Silicon Valley)
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Channel Integration (IBM, Oxford, Santa Clara)
All point to the same conclusion:
Innovation happens when technology, people, data and organization are merged into one holistic customer experience.
This was the essence of San Francisco 2008 — the great professional lesson that is not tied to the days, but to the entire period.
Relevance today
Many of the findings from 2008 are the basis for today's strategy in both the private and public sectors:
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Customer journey mapping builds directly on Reynolds and Kalyanam.
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IBM Almaden's model lives on in omnichannel architecture and CRM solutions.
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Innovation Norway still uses the principle of “Norway as a test arena”.
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Virtual ecosystems have found successors in the metaverse and immersive collaboration.
Day 4 therefore stands as a milestone – where technology, strategy and culture were connected into a holistic view of innovation.
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
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams show how the internet, collaboration, and digital networks are changing the way businesses create innovation, products, and services. The book explains how openness, sharing, co-creation, and global ecosystems have become central drivers of the modern digital economy.
