Internet advertising
Czech advertisers spent roughly CZK 5 billion (€190 mil.) on the Internet last year. That represents about 10% of the country’s total advertising spend. According to the Factum Invenio research, advertisers spent CZK 3.3 billion on web banners, CZK 1 billion on search ads, and CZK 0.75 billion on directories.

Internet access in households
According to the Czech Telecommunication Office, 52% of inhabitants have Internet access at home. 44% of the households use Wi-Fi (twice as much as the EU average), 21% cable, 18% ADSL, 10% mobile phones, 5% traditional dial-up and 4% ISDN.

Broadband
According to the Czech Statistical Office there were 1.9 million broadband lines at the end of 2008. That represents an annual growth of 15%. The technology with the highest share is ADSL (681K users). 572k users prefer Wi-Fi and other wireless technologies, 360K use cable.

Mobile phone users
In 2008, the number of the mobile phone numbers increased by 500,000 to 13.57 million. Vodafone posted the highest growth (in total 2.89 million subscribers) while T-Mobile remained the operator with the highest number of active SIM cards (5.42 million) and the national incumbent Telefónica O2 5.26 mil.

WEF Global IT Report
According to the Global Information Technology Report 2008–2009 (published annually) by the World Economic Forum there are 27 personal computers, 43 internet users, 16 broadband subscribers and 128 active SIM cards per 100 inhabitants. That puts the Czech Republic in 32nd place among 134 countries after Austria (16th) and before Hungary (41st) and Slovakia (43rd). The ranking is led by Denmark, Sweden and the USA. The research was based on nine indexes evaluating environment (market, political, regulatory  and infrastructure), readiness (individual, corporate, government) and usage (individual, corporate, government).

Following Ivo’s call to action, I started paying more attention to Twitter. I set up my Tumblr page to feed into my personal Twitter account. I also created a Twitter account for nowEurope, and set up an automated feed from this blog. Even still, I confess to you all – I don’t really like Twitter-ing. Maybe I’m missing something?

What about you, gentle reader? I set up this poll way back then to collect statistics on your Twitter usage. Only a handful of you have taken part. Okay, maybe the problem is that the poll sits halfway down the page on the right-hand column. So let me put it in your face.

In 2000, a report stunned the medical community. It showed that medical errors are one of the nation’s (US) leading causes of death and injury. The report, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, estimated that as many as 44,000 to 98,000 people die in U.S. hospitals each year as the result of medical errors. This means that more people die from medical errors than from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS.

To compound this fact, errors in health care have been estimated to cost more than $5 million per year in a large teaching hospital, and preventable healthcare-related errors cost the economy from $17 to $29 billion each year (Translating Research into Practice. Reducing Errors in Health Care). An editorial in the BMJ extrapolates from a pilot UK study which showed that in England and Wales adverse events lead to an extra three million bed days at a minimum cost of £1bn per year (BMJ 2001)). The good news is that many medical errors are preventable. For example, research suggests that over half of all adverse drug reactions are preventable through alerting systems, controls on administration and ordering.

The message is clear. Providing the necessary information, when and where it is needed, can save lifes and cut costs.

Two tools needed to master information:

• A method of being alerted to new information (foraging)
• A tool for finding the information again when you need it. (hunting)

Clinicians are flocking to PDAs and they are pulling their institutions with them – forcing them to keep pace and support mobile technology. PDAs, along with properly structured content, can positively affect how clinicians care for their patients.

Physicians say PDA use at the point of care cuts medical errors and provides vital decision support. Nevertheless, just one in five can link their PDAs to the larger hospital IT enterprise, according to research by Skyscape.

High quality, integrated clinical information is at the crossroad of clinical research, evidence-based health care and the clinical application research.

Consequently, a coherent clinical information framework is required. The inability to deal effectively at the point-of-care with clinical information is a key limitation to using informatics to support safe, evidence-based healthcare and to gather the information needed to deliver clinical governance.

We are trying to address some of these challenges by launching a project (Mobilmed) to develop a software solution for mobile devices connecting to hospital information systems and decision supporting tools.

It would be interesting to see where the Centrope region is at the moment, and how much resources are dedicated to issue these problems.

In Austria, the consumer price for medium mobile usage  dropped from €16.36 per month in 2008 to as low as €7.31. This is the third lowest mobile rate in the EU. At the same time in the Czech Republic, the price rose by more than 20% (from € 21.99 to € 27.24), while in Slovakia and Hungary the prices remained the same as previous year (€ 25.97 and € 15.02 respectively).

I wonder what is the reason for this difference. How could the same multinational telecom company cut prices by more than 50% in Austria, while keeping the same price in HU and SK and increasing prices in CZ ?

1. Talking about stakeholders: the easiest definition of “stakeholder” is someone who has interest and influence on a certain process and especially its outcome (although it is very common to call anybody “stakeholder” who is just interested). So it must be clear for what they are stakeholders and in relation to whom and what. Should they help with financing, are they customers, future business or research partners, are they subcontractors or cluster managers? Or do we invite them to some kind of brokerage, matchmaking or cooperation event?

2. Concerning the development of a cluster strategy it would maybe lead us a few steps backward just to invite a bunch of people from all sorts of organisations (private, public agencies, clusters, companies). This is how CITT started in 2006, when we invited all interested persons. After discussing these cluster concepts for a while, we should now think about how and where we incorporate such an open workshop within our work in progress. Who do we ask about what, whose opinion is nice to hear, who should be given which responsibility? What can external persons contribute to certain parts of our concepts?

3. Conclusion: I suggest we distinguish between different sorts of contexts and stakeholders. For example we can invite potential customers, when it comes to adapting services to their demands. We can invite public organisations for discussions about their interests and contributions regarding our cluster. We could (in my opinion not yet) invite other clusters regarding their contributions to a “loose” cluster (the first step/ basic level). If we want to bridge several gaps between the countries, public and private organisations etc. this should in my opinion happen not now, but in within a future cluster/network. If we invite all people known to us (business, public org. etc) for a discussion about a cluster strategy the meeting should have a very concrete topic and very structured setting. It should provide opportunity to the guests to articulate their opinions.

So to summarize my statement: If we establish such a working group (or a series), let us define the context, purpose and target group in advance (e.g. one workshop with IT companies, one with sponsors, one with public organisations, etc). Otherwise we have too “many cooks discussing the soup…”
Another practical possibility would be to organize a cooperation/brokerage event together with EEN/FFG as starting point of a cross border network/Centrope cluster at the end of the CITT project. They have a very good online matching tool, mailing lists (of course including other EEN offices) and experience with general cooperation events.

As its population ages, Hungary faces the twin challenges of increasing cost of health-care, and the reduced ability of elderly people to pay for it. This financial phenomenon has only accelerated with the financial crisis, as described in this article in Somogyi Hirlap (the article is Hungarian).

In partnership with the county municipality and the hospital, we’re running a pilot programme which addresses the needs of older people who wish stay in their homes, as well as the shortage of nursing staff and hospital funding. Older people will be equipped with sensors for monitoring their physiological parameters. All data are transmitted to a central help desk, monitored by retired nurses who live nearby. Compensation of the nurses is cost efficient, they are motivated.

All actions and orders are registered in a shared service centre. This enables the creation of new services, such as prescription drug ordering and laundry service.

The programmes described above fit in perfectly with the National Health Development Programme (PDF). If anybody is interested in joining us in these initiatives, we warmly welcome partners.

The best approach is to have a comprehensive innovation process management (IPM) structure that treats innovation as a series of cycles that run within a grand, enterprise innovation process cycle.

The Innovation Process Cycle

An innovation process cycle combines creative problem solving (CPS) with scientific peer review evaluation and some typical business tools.

1) The Challenge
The cycle starts with a problem or goal which needs to be formulated into an innovation challenge. Once this is done, the challenge is presented to the problem solving group. This may be done in the form of a brainstorming event, ideas campaign or other activity. The group problem solving group may be a team, all employees in the firm, the public or any other group of people.

2) Collaboration
In order to maximise the creative potential of the problem solving group, the idea generation activity should be collaborative in nature. This can be accomplished in many ways. Idea management and innovation process management software often provides on-line collaboration tools, while facilitators of brainstorming and other ideation events should promote collaborative idea development.

3) Combination
Because an innovation process cycle starts with a challenge, ideas tend to be interrelated and many are complementary. Hence, before going further, it is best to combine such complementary ideas into larger, more sophisticated ideas so that they can be handled as a single package. This makes the next steps in the cycle more efficient.

4) Scientific Peer Review Evaluation
Here is where a lot of innovation initiatives break down: choosing the best ideas. Many poorly thought out approaches use voting, which is a good way to identify the most popular idea, but an appallingly ineffective method for identifying the most potentially innovative idea. I have also seen organisations put a great deal of effort into idea generation, leaving the final decision to a manager who basically picks out her favourite idea. Assuming the manager has suitable business expertise, such an approach is better than voting – as it is based on expertise rather than popularity – but it is typically far from perfect.

The scientific approach of peer review by expert, on the other hand, is ideally suited for identifying the most promising ideas in a cycle. Instead of basing selection on popularity (can you imagine Einstein sending his special theory of relativity to the public for a vote in order to determine its validity?) or the whim of a manager, you apply a set of business criteria to the idea and rank how well the idea meets each criterion. If an idea achieves a sufficiently high ranking, either as is or through additional modification, it should be developed further.

5) Testing and Development
Ideas identified as being potential innovations are now ready to be tested and developed. Here is where typical business tools come in useful. A business case is a useful means of hypothetically implementing an innovative idea and projecting the potential results. Of course it is not perfect, but it indicates possible issues in the implementation of the idea, as well as benefits that may not have been obvious to the original idea developers.

Prototypes are an excellent means for testing ideas. Not only do they allow you, your colleagues, customers and others to see how an idea would actually look in implementation, but building and playing with a prototype is a good method of further improving upon the core idea. Prototypes are, of course, ideally suited towards material ideas such as new products. But more abstract ideas, such as new services, process improvements and other concepts can often be prototyped through role-play, building structural models and making diagrams.

6) Implementation
Ideas that make it through testing and development are ready to be implemented. Unless the idea is a radical change from your usual activities, you don’t need me to tell you how to do this!

7) Review
Once ideas have been implemented, they need to be reviewed, probably against an ongoing series of milestones. If an implementation does not achieve a milestone, it needs to modified or killed. Moreover, even the most spectacularly effective and profitable breakthrough innovations need to be improved on a regular basis.

8) New Needs and Inspiration
Hence, reviewing the implementation of new ideas should indicate new needs which can be transformed into challenges which, in turn, start a new innovation process cycle. Likewise, implementations can inspire new corporate goals. Again, these can be turned into new challenges and new cycles.
Integrated Innovation Process Management

An innovative company, however, should not have a single innovation process cycle in operation. Rather it should have many of them! Large cycles are suitable for enterprise-wide innovation. Meanwhile, business units can run somewhat smaller innovation process cycles in order to manage their own ideas (although it should be noted, collaborative groups need not be limited to employees of that business unit). Teams, departments and any other group can also run their own innovation process cycles.

Multiple innovation process cycles create the process

However, these innovation process cycles should not be in isolation. Rather they should inspire and feed other cycles elsewhere in the organisation. For instance, the implementation of a new product idea should inspire innovation cycles in the marketing, sales and customer service divisions as well as at the enterprise level.

Managers should watch their colleagues’ innovation process cycles and ruthlessly copy ideas as inspirations for their own cycles.

The Result: a Highly Innovative Organisation

By applying innovation process management across your entire organisation, you can transform it into one which is innovation driven. And that is a sure way to keep well ahead of the competition, survive this financial crisis and make your firm a great place to work. Is there anything more you could possibly want from work?

Over the years, I’m made a habit of forwarding useful information to my friends and business contacts. This habit is a friendly way of keeping in touch – the digital equivalent of saying ‘hello, I remember you.’ It’s also clever way of offering value, provided I don’t overwhelm my friends with irrelevent information. The key is moderation, as well as relevency.

Playing with Share This, recently, I discovered that I could also add this feature to my browser. (In Firefox, it’s a plugin, in Safari it’s a bookmarklet on my toolbar.) What’s more, Share This also includes a contact manager. You can import your contacts from Gmail, Hotmail and many other services. Before I discovered these features I used to copy and paste URLs into an email, the copy and paste bits of relevent text. Who has the time for that? Now, from any web page, I can open Share This from the browser, select a friend’s email address, and add a personal message. Away it goes.

I admit, Share This might not appeal to everybody. But then again, you might find yourself liking it. Why not take a minute to play with the Share This feature at the bottom of this post. If you find it useful (or anything else you read at nowEurope) take a half minute to let your friends and colleagues know about it.

One of the most striking differences between the Austrian and the British market is their access to the Eastern European market. It is a well known fact that Eastern European business partners play an important role for the Austrian and especially Viennese IT sector. Furthermore, various international companies coordinate their CEE activities via Vienna. This is why Vienna is known as the third largest IT location in Europe, after London and Munich.

But the Eastern European IT market is not that important to enterprises in the UK, aside from some big players. Charles Ward could not explain why and found it rather astonishing. My advice would be to locate British enterprises in Vienna to benefit from their experience and strategies, especially from those of the CENTROPE region, and then expand to Eastern European countries. Charles Ward strongly supported my suggestion. If this is really going to be implemented cannot be foreseen. However it could be a new starting point for further and stronger cooperation between Austria and the United Kingdom.

It seems everywhere in the business world, today, you see pain and misery. And yet, what we’ve discovered at Howdy Group is that a recession is also a wonderful time to build partnerships. When two or more parties direct their resources and energies toward a common goal, the result is MUCH more powerful. The general reaction this year is shock, pessimism and retreat. That means this is EXACTLY the right time to build, partner, grow and prepare for the eventual recovery.

Case in point: this morning I read in the Wall Street Journal that over half the companies on the 2009 Fortune 500 list were started during a recession. This finding emerged from a study (PDF) just released by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. “Despite the pain of the current recession, there is reason for hope,” the study concludes, “good things do grow out of recessions.”

The same WSJ article also mentions Prezi, a Hungarian start up I have previously written about. Actually, the WSJ links to an article at Harvard Business Publishing which calls Prezi as “the best business model in the world.” The author is Umair Haque, director of Havas Media Lab. Check this quote:

If I was on the corp dev team at Google, I might think hard about whether Prezi is the Powerpoint-killer that will be the final nail in Microsoft’s cash-lined coffin.

This is a Budapest startup. We’re all in this recession together. My question to you, gentle reader. Are you thinking big enough?