Sustainable Innovation through Collaboration

We're facing some big challenges at the moment, and everyone is working hard to create their own solutions, but could there be a more efficient way?

In our lives we face lots of problems. These can be split into two categories:

1. "Core problems", these are things that if you can solve will put you ahead of the crowd, boost your profits, increase efficiencies, give you a unique value proposition. These are things that will give you a direct benefit by investing into solutions. Examples are, how do you streamline what you do, how can you improve the quality of what you do.

2. "Communal problems", these are things that everyone deals with that benefit the industry ecosystem, the natural environment, or our society. These are things that we should all be doing, but are expensive and don't give much directly in return for investing into them. Examples are, how can you make sure none of your waste goes to landfill, how can you improve the health of you customers, how do you boost the social wellbeing of your community.

Working on core problems independently makes sense, creates competition, encourages innovation, boosts the economy. Working on communal problems independently makes less sense, councils and businesses are working in secret to outcompete each other in sustainability or social impact, sacrificing economies of scale, and not leveraging the capabilities of community or academia. There is a lot of working in silos, gatekeeping information, and lack of collaboration that is holding us back from cheap and efficient communal outcomes like sustainability, social wellbeing, and community health.

What are the "communal problems" you face in your business, industry, community group or council that you are trying to solve by yourself, that you could be solving with others facing those same problems? How can you work together without compromising your competitive edge and innovation? Let's start breaking down these silo walls, because what's good for the ecosystem is good for everything in the ecosystem, including you!

- Nelson Harper

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Drive Conference NZ is returning next year on 15 MAY 2025. Be sure to follow their page for further updates or learn more at https://www.driveconference.co.nz