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Charles Leadbeater
Charles Leadbeater is an independent writer, speaker and adviser to leading companies on innovation, entrepreneurship and the knowledge economy. His book on the rise of the knowledge economy, Living on Thin Air: The New Economy was published in the UK in 1999 and then in Italian, Chinese, German and Korean as well as in the US as The Weightless Society. His subsequent book Up the Down Escalator: Why the Global Pessimists are Wrong was published by Penguin in July 2002.
He speaks at conferences around the world on innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as for leading companies such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, British Telecom, Ericsson, Microsoft and Swiss Re. He spent ten years working on the Financial Times where he was Labour Editor, Industrial Editor and Tokyo Bureau Chief before becoming the paper's Features Editor.
In 1994 he became Assistant Editor at The Independent where, with Helen Fielding, he devised Bridget Jones’s Diary column. In 1999 he won the David Watt prize for journalism.
Charles has been an adviser to the Downing St Policy Unit and the British government's Department of Trade and Industry on the rise of the Internet and the knowledge driven economy. He drafted the British government White Paper - Our Competitive Future: Building the Knowledge Driven Economy published in December 1998, the Science White Paper published in July 2000 and helped to draft the Communications White Paper published in December 2000 and the Competitiveness White Paper published in January 2001. He drew up the initial plan for the Department of Culture's project Culture Online, which is promoting digital access to publicly funded museums, galleries and arts.
In 2003 the DCMS published Framework for the Future a vision for the role of public libraries in the knowledge society. With the Design Councul he drafted Kit for Purpose a report on how learning would benefit from better designed classroom environments which subsequently won funding worth £650,000. He has worked closely with the Arts Council governing council on its future strategy.
Charles has advised a wide range of leading companies including Channel Four Television, Discovery Europe, Atlas Venture, Ericsson, Accenture, British Telecom, as well as organisations The Inland Revenue, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Charles is a Senior Research Associate with the independent think-tank Demos, and has written reports and pamphlets on social entrepreneurship, civic entrepreneurship in the public sector, and the rise of knowledge entrepreneurs. Recent projects include reports on the future of television, innovation in public services and the politics of globalisation. He also works closely with the international design company Ideo advising companies on creating cultures and strategies for innovation.
He was educated at the Vyne Comprehensive School in Basingstoke, won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford and left in 1981 with a first class degree in Politics Philosophy and Economics. After a stint with the breakfast television station TV-am he joined Weekend World the current affairs programme before moving to the Financial Times.
More about Charles Leadbeater: http://charlesleadbeater.net
speech
Swarms and Innovation
The way we generate new ideas is changing. Ideas do not come down pipeline from inventors. They are more often the product of collaboration between many players, among them consumers. Drawing a picture of this kind of innovation is more like a swarm or nest than a pipeline. Part of the story is the way we are moving into a new era of globalisation: the globalisation of knowledge and innovation not just money and materials, in which China and India will be huge players.
So how we lead, organise, enable these swarm innovations? They can be very powerful but are they always socially benign? What does it mean for our social fabric as well as our commercial life?
