We’ve have filmed the event so you can catch a glimpse of the ‘innovative vibes’ at Living Tomorrow last Monday.

• Book launch event The Balancing Act of Innovation
• The Balancing act of Innovation – Panel debate ‘How to boos innovative performance?
• The Balancing act Of Innovation – Speech of the 2 authors

Enjoy!

Here are the chapters of the book with the contributors:

Foreword: Rudy Provoost, Chief Executive Officer, Philips Lighting

Introduction · The balancing act of innovation, written by Philippe Silberzahn and Walter Van Dyck.

Chapter 1 · Arteconomy: stimulating creativity and innovation through art, written by Herman Van den Broeck and Eva Cools.

Chapter 2 · A technology intelligence system to enable open innovation at VIB, written by Mark Veugelers, Stijn Viaene and Jo Bury.

Chapter 3 · A showcase in show business: Studio 100 outperforms the competition through product leadership Addressing every aspect of children’s entertainment, written by Kurt Verweire and Judith Escalier Revollo.

Chapter 4 · Belgacom Mobile: IT-enabled process innovation in turbulent industries, written by Joachim Van den Bergh and Stijn Viaene.

Chapter 5 · Breaking into an established market through a process of experimentation: the case of GreenPan, written by Miguel Meuleman, Jan Lepoutre, Olivier Tilleuil and Wouter De Maeseneire.

Chapter 6 · How to survive your own business model innovation: the story of Bongo, written by Marion Debruyne.

Chapter 7 · The sagacity of Sigasi: financing an innovative start-up with limited resources, written by Sophie Manigart and Andy Heughebaert.

Chapter 8 · Winning the disruptive technology game: the case of Alcatel Access Network Division (A.N.D.), written by Steve Muylle and Pieter Geeraerts.

Chapter 9 · The benefits of open innovation in low-tech SMEs: the Quilts of Denmark story. The fight against commoditisation, written by Wim Vanhaverbeke.

Chapter 10 · Growth by necessity and design: the balancing act of new business platforms at Cronos, written by Iris Vanaelst.

Chapter 11 · Going Beyond the Pill: Business Transformation through Corporate Venturing at Janssen Pharmaceutica, written by Walter Van Dyck and Tom Aelbrecht.

Epilogue · BIC’s innovation journey. An interview with Billy Salha, General Manager Europe, BIC, with Philippe Silberzahn.

So yesterday was the official launch of the book. We are told that some copies had already been smugled and were circulating across Europe in advance but that hasn’t been confirmed.
Because each guest was promised a free copy of the book signed by the authors, the afternoon started for Walter and I by a chain-signing session of the books. I should have known that free food is never really free.
It was nice to see that some 150 people turned up and it was feared, at some point, that the auditorium would be too small but eventually it worked out fine.
So the afternoon started with a short introduction by Hilde Vanmechelen from our publisher Lannoo. Then Walter and I presented the book and our main findings with a few examples. Perhaps the quote of the day is “There is no mature market, only mature marketeers.” Philippe Haspeslagh, Dean of Vlerick, gave a few words and thanked the featured companies for allowing us to tell their story.
After the speeches, there was an interesting panel debate moderated by Olaf Du Pont (University of Gent) with:

• Tom Aelbrecht, Director, Venturing & Incubation, Janssen Pharmaceutica / Johnson & Johnson
• Jo Daris, General Manager, Studio 100 Animation
• Wim De Veirman, CEO, GreenPan
• Pieter Geeraerts, General Programme Manager, KPNGB Managed Network Services, Alcatel Lucent

A special thanks to all four of them for sharing their insights with us. The event was supposed to finish at 6pm, but when I left at 7:15 to catch my flight back to Lyon, some 40 people were still around. You might think it was an excuse to stay longer to enjoy the (great) deserts, but overhearing showed that people were actually discussing about innovation. Hard core!

As could be expected, the event was superbly organized, once again demonstrating one of Vlerick’s core strengths.

So how did the book come about? It all started with a mission.

Upon joining Vlerick, I was tasked with a mission: get the Vlerick faculty to work together on innovation. Only youth and a certain degree of optimism could make that this mission was welcomed with excitment. Think about it: most people would tell you that getting faculty to work together is almost a contradiction in terms, and it’s even worse if they are from different departments – or “competence centers” as it is called there.

So there was option 1: get people together, discuss about everybody’s view on innovation, agree on a common framework, and take it from there. Might as well try to cool down hell… Option 2 was rather un-academic: inventory what the faculty had already done on innovation and publish it. As it happened, there was actually quite a lot that had already been done, in particular with case studies.

Over the years, interesting companies or practices, original approaches, in all sectors and functional areas, had been studied in depth. Some of these companies were relatively unknown outside their own industries, which meant that more could probably be learned from them.

Even more interestingly, there were a number of lessons that could emerge once one started to bring all this material together. Approaching innovation as a learning experience, the importance of devising each company’s own approach, and the challenge of balancing between innovation and creativity were the three most striking. It was felt important to tell each company’s story, and follow the story with an academic analysis, a sort of “what can we learn from it?”. In some cases were fortunate to be able to have one of the case’s hero give us an interview to share his or her view of the story.

As the book project was gathering speed, Walter Van Dyck joined the School. I, very generously, gave him maybe one or two days to get settled before enrolling him and join the tornado. By then the first chapters were trickling in and the pair switched to full reading/feedback/rewriting mode. While some book projects can be nightmarish, it must be said here that although there was much sweat, there wasn’t any blood, and probably not much tears either.

Indeed, the deadline was met and that, apparently, our published hasn’t comprehended yet.

Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School is proud to present to you its most recent book “The Balancing Act of Innovation”. This very hands-on book offers you a helicopter view on innovation in all its diversity and across all management domains: sometimes radical, sometimes incremental, sometimes spectacular, sometimes less so but no less effective. Via successful and inspiring company cases of amongst others Janssen Pharmaceutica, Alcatel Lucent, Studio 100 and Belgacom Mobile you will get an overall view of the different types of innovation, from a small firm to a big company, from  high-tech to low-tech. There is no one best way to innovation; every company has to invent its own innovation “style”. We hope that this book will help you in discovering your own road to innovation!