Innovation and the outdoors
Published 18 May 2010
Innov_ex 2010 – the innovation conference for the outdoor industries – was held at Lancaster University Management School on 28 April. The theme of the conference was innovation and the outdoors: sustainable products, processes and activities.
This year's conference focused on the Innovation Design Prize, a key feature of Innov_ex which helps, supports and inspires new designers of outdoor products. Innovation is the life-blood of most industries and the outdoors is no exception.
The 2010 conference was sponsored by the Outdoor Industries Association and web streamed around the world.
The conference was jointly organised by Mike Parsons and Professor Mary Rose, who report on this unique event:
Innov_ex 2010 continued the journey of learning about sustainability. It is increasingly clear that sustainability must become fully integrated into all decisions if it is to bring real economic and social gains to any business or organisation. If it is just bolted on to an existing business model it might bring short-term PR gains, but little more, and even these might prove illusory if seen as 'green-wash'.
Our conference is also taking us on a 'virtual' learning journey as we continue experimenting with web-streaming and video conferencing. Our speakers from Canada and Japan were able to join us through video conferencing, generating a far smaller carbon footprint than would have been the case if had they travelled to Lancaster. The video conferencing software had another role this year – it gave us a fall-back plan had any of our speakers been stranded abroad by the volcanic ash cloud.
Web-streaming also gave flexibility to virtual delegates, who joined in via Twitter and a live blog kept on the day by Peter MacFarlane, one of our Innovation Design Prize judges.
The web streaming and video conferencing is all part of our vision for the long-term sustainability of Innov_ex. We hope it will draw in a world-wide audience for future conferences, and allow us to generate income based on access to the web stream.
Our website brings the findings of the 2009 and 2010 conferences together to provide a digest of the meaning of sustainability, the causes of environmental crisis, approaches to carbon foot-printing and the implications for the outdoor industries.
