IEED appoints Innovator in Residence
Published 30 August 2010
Mike Parsons has been appointed Innovator in Residence at the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (IEED), from 1 September 2010, supported by the ESRC Business Placement Fellowship scheme.
The appointment of an Innovator in Residence strengthens IEED’s capacity to engage in sustained and creative dialogue on innovation with business. Mike Parsons has an established and distinguished record in business and in the research and teaching activities of IEED.
During the fellowship Mike, in collaboration with Dr Mary Rose, will address the application of collaborative software and social media for business. Social media and collaborative software are becoming increasingly important for business, offering opportunities for innovative application in business processes, marketing and customer engagement.
By exploring how to make successful online collaboration achievable, this project uses theory to inform innovative practice in businesses. Used with awareness of the barriers to success, social media and collaborative software can save costs, improve productivity and create a community around the company.The project focuses on the applications of social media in business through the development of a community around the conference, Innovation for Extremes, and the development of webinar content for small and medium-sized business (SMEs). It is especially timely, given IEED’s European Regional Development Fund’s project Innovation for Growth, which is aimed especially at SMEs.
This innovative project builds on existing experience. In December 2009 a pilot project was undertaken by Mike Parsons and Mary Rose which links their MSc course in innovation to members of the Outdoor Industries Association. A small group were invited to participate in a student workshop on the MSc in E-Business and Innovation, focusing on mass collaboration and the application Web 2.0 for business. The event was highly successful and a Sakai workspace was set up to allow continued engagement. A test dummy webstream was carried out and stored on a hard drive. This is to develop understanding of successful workshop web streaming to inform successful webinar development. The workshop fuelled interest in social media, in the Outdoor Industries Association, and led to a successful student project on the MSc in E-Business and Innovation over summer 2010.
Mike Parsons built the outdoor brand Karrimor as a major international brand through to 1996 and was responsible for a number of iconic innovations. He is also founder of Original Mountain Marathon Ltd. His working relationship with IEED dates back to 2004 and his research collaboration with Professor Mary Rose began in 2000. Their book Invisible on Everest: Innovation and the Gear Makers (2003) was awarded the Design History Scholarship award in 2005 and was runner up for the Wadsworth Prize for business history in 2004.
The academic/business research collaboration has provided a spring board to develop research, teaching and the annual innovation conference Innovation for Extremes for the outdoor industry. In its eighth year, the conference is now sponsored by the Outdoor Industries Association. A series of collaborative research publications have been produced and undergraduate and postgraduate courses in innovation in 2004 and 2005. Rose and Parsons were awarded the Lancaster University Prize for teaching for their undergraduate innovation course in 2005.
Innovation for Extremes is an excellent example of university-business knowledge exchange. The development of an interactive and collaborative community around the conference will widen and deepen the relationships. Combined with the development of webinars on social media and collaborative software, this activity will enhance IEED’s ability to facilitate remote teaching and learning. It will also provide the basis for research of the social processes involved.
Rohantime magazine's Sarah Howcroft interviewed Mike Parsons, Innovator in Residence at LUMS, on 6 October 2010. In the interview Mike discusses how Lancaster is using innovation as a subject in university teaching.
