SYNTHESiST Blogs! – Capture the Passion 1.0

Innovation, for me, is a tough master. It’s not just about change. It is a process of creating, diffusing and applying knowledge by firms and other stakeholder groups in a country. The Innovator stands between the Scientist and the Entrepreneur. And the final test – the good innovation should add to the net and new economic wealth, the Total Factor Productivity, of the country and not just re-allocate or move resources to benefit certain sectors of the economy.

And writing about innovation is just as hard. In the past four weeks when I started these posts, I found that writing in the first person is difficult after almost 30 years of management memos when I omitted the subject and started with the verb.

I found putting passion back a hard slog, too. As I go along, I expect that taking out jargon and three-syllable words when writing about a 4-syllable subject like innovation will be tough, as well. I need to keep my sentences short – around 20 words per sentence – and use the period more as a chance for the reader to catch up. And I have to share my supposed nuggets of wisdom in very short posts.

My first word limit is the length of a typical New York Times Op-Ed that is 680 words. After a quick-and-dirty survey, I found that most Filipinos and my target community in ASEAN do not read much and in English, so my new goal is 340 words or shorter. Finally, I have to re-learn the art of the lede to catch and hold my site visitor with just the excerpt in this crowded blogosphere. Content and medium will be big challenges.

I did discover that if I write as I speak I will be better understood. And that’s me above speaking at AYES 2009 in Kuala Lumpur 7 Feb. This picture shows me as a real person. I do hope that we will share many mutually beneficial conversations in the future.