Want to learn about innovation? Head to Toronto

Christine Flanagan
October 30, 2008

I’m thinking I should move to Canada... This past Tuesday I traveled to the University of Toronto with BIF chief catalyst Saul Kaplan to spend an incredible day with Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School, Richard Florida of Rise of the Creative Class fame, and Heather Fraser who directs a unique program on campus called “DesignWorks.”

It’s been ten years since I was last in Toronto. The city has undergone dramatic changes. There’s a genuine energy in the city which I hadn’t felt before. Culturally, it’s a mosaic of immigrants from all over the globe. Walking much of the university district, it was hard to miss the architectural transformation too. Innovation is everywhere. Probably most impressive was The MaRS Centre - an old hospital converted into a non-profit innovation centre connecting science, technology and social entrepreneurs with business skills, networks and capital.

The building is undeniably cool. Located in Toronto’s “Discovery District” -- two square kilometres have been designated as the city’s center of innovation. The MaRS Centre is a gateway of sorts to Canada’s largest concentration of scientific research. It’s anchored by major teaching hospitals, the University of Toronto and more than two dozen affiliated research institutes.

MaRS Centre from the outside

MaRS Centre from the inside

MaRS was created in 2000. The founding group raised significant capital (almost $100 million from all three levels of government and both institutional and individual private sector donors and an additional $130 million of debt and credit lease instruments were also secured) to support the development. What’s so clear is that leadership to drive public/private sector collaboration is required to effect real change. Many credit Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty for helping to not only create the MaRS Centre but also invigorate the region as a whole.

For instance, in 2006, motivated by his desire to make Ontario, Canada, “a hotbed of innovation”, McGuinty set up a Ministry of Research and Innovation and appointed himself minister. “I want to send a signal to the world at large that if you have an exciting idea that you would like to develop further, and in particular if you would like to pilot a new technology, a new process or a new application, we’re the place to do it,” he said. Proving it’s not all talk, the ministry is investing nearly $1.7bn over five years in research, commercialization and outreach programs throughout Ontario. “We did an internal review of the innovation infrastructure in place in Ontario and discovered we needed more of the right kinds of money and more of the right kinds of people,” McGuinty said. One of those "right kinds of people" is Roger Martin.

During his ten years as Dean, Martin has transformed the Rotman School from a mediocre Canadian business school to a world-class institution. It’s one of the few business schools around with an innovative curriculum built around the fundamentals of design thinking. Martin believes designers approaches to thinking and problem-solving can and should be applied to all components of business (He calls it integrative thinking and business design.) Most of our own processes here at the Business Innovation Factory are firmly rooted in design thinking principles. What a treat to spend some time with someone like Martin who also agrees that the mindset and methods behind the design of great products or services are also applicable to the successful design of new business models. Most CEOs today have only had to lead a single business model throughout his or her entire career. And most haven't had to significantly change a business model in order to sustain the organization competitively. Here at BIF, we suspect that the CEO of tomorrow will have to change their business model several times over the course of a career and the successful CEO will establish an ongoing process to explore new business models, even models that might threaten the current one. Chief catalyst Saul Kaplan often asks: "Where do they teach business model innovation?" Well I think the answer now is The Rotman School of Management.

Image Source: Rotman School

To help implement his vision, Martin brought the leadership of Heather Fraser to Toronto to direct a program that merges the practices of business and design at a strategy innovation lab called DesignWorks. In less than three years, Fraser had led students through more than 20 projects spanning a range of sectors and subjects including wireless, wellness and waste management. Her approach draws on the principles and tools used across many design disciplines like Engineering, Architecture and Industrial Design. While she admits there is no "plug and play formula" for effective business design, each project operates within Designworks' Three Gears of Design: User Understanding, Concept Visualization and Strategic Business Design. For anyone familiar with the Business Innovation Factory, this approach should sound strikingly familiar. In fact, after spending a couple of hours with Heather and her team, we collectively agreed to call DesignWorks "BIFNorth." (Or, we could just as easily be called DesignWorks South.)

Martin also managed to lure Richard Florida to Toronto in 2007 to direct the Rotman School's new $120-million Martin Prosperity Institute. Spinning off from much of Florida's research, the institute's goal is to build a leading think-tank on the role of sub-national factors – location, place and city-regions – in global economic prosperity. By taking an integrated view of prosperity, the institute will look beyond economic measures to include the importance of quality of place and the development of people’s creative potential. I'm looking forward to ongoing conversations with our new friends at the Rotman school. I suspect there might even be a collaboration or two about to happen as well. Bottom line: if you want to learn about innovation, Toronto is the place to be.

RELATED

• Rotman article on integrative thinking
• Fast Company article on Roger Martin and the business of design
• Watch Heather Fraser of DesignWorks talk about the current challenges in management education. In this interview she says that design-based thinking creates sustainable business value.