Introduction

Something strange is happening to the world in which we live and work.

We stand at the start of a new century and a new millennium . At the same time, we are leaving the Industrial Age and crossing the threshold of a new age in human history, the Cyber Age. In this age we will live and work in the very new dimension of cyberspace (the rapidly evolving, global, interactive, and multimedia information and communications network). In fact, many of us have already started to live and work in this new economic, social and political environment.

We are going through a period of rapid and radical change, and a new economy is forming that bears little resemblance to that of the past. The change is so fast, broad and fundamental in nature that it can best be described as an economic metamorphosis. We are experiencing a total and, in historic terms, instantaneous change in the fundamental nature of our corporate and personal worlds . Globalisation, deregulation , rationalisation, privatisation, global alliances and mega-mergersthese are just a few of the radical changes that are affecting all of our lives as we struggle to restructure and transform our lives and organisations in order to meet the new challenges of a new era.

The change occurring around us is so rapid and radical that if we also do not change we will quickly fall behind and eventually perish. We, too, must transform if we are to be successful. In fact, it will be our strategies for change and the speed at which we implement them that will determine our future success.

Such great change brings great challenges, but also new opportunities. If we choose to be the initiators of change, to be proactive creators and innovators, then we will thrive, prosper and grow in the twenty-first century.

The future will not be an extension of the past, and it is not likely that we can use yesterday s strategies to solve todays problems and expect to be in business tomorrow. If we choose to change by following others, however, we will be forever scrambling to catch up just to survive. Therefore, we need to adopt entirely new strategies . . . and new strategies require new ideas . In a world of accelerating change and an explosive growth of information, it is not the information that counts, but what we do with it. Our ability to be the first to use new information to develop new ideas and to innovate will become our major competitive advantage.

In the networked world, innovation will be the key to our survival, growth and prosperity in the new economy. In the past, when the rate of change was much slower, we often treated innovation as a corporate convenience or waited for it to occur at random. In the twenty-first century, if we wish to be successful we must strategically develop innovation as a core competency within our organisations.

To understand how to develop strategic corporate innovation in the networked world, however, we must first understand:

• the nature of the networked world of the twenty-first century

• the nature of innovation in the networked world

• how to plan for strategic innovation in the networked world

• how to create the right environment for innovation to flourish.

Through this exploration we will be well on our way to understanding how to shape our own destiny and create our own future.