NEWPORT, R.I. -- A recent Diffusion and Adaption of Innovation Studio Summit (DAISS) gathered scientists and engineers from across the Naval Research and Development Enterprise to explore ways to accelerate adoption of innovation, an objective outlined in strategic guidance from both the chief of naval operations and the chief of naval research.
In response to these directives, Donald McCormack, executive director, Naval Surface and Undersea Warfare Centers, has accelerated the warfare centers’ collaborative efforts on innovation. One line of effort specifically challenges the Northeast region, Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC), and the Navy to collaborate with industry and academic partners to leverage a wide variety of skills.
The March 26-28 event, sponsored by NUWC Newport Division’s NUWC University in conjunction with U.S. Naval War College, also in Newport, brought senior leaders from across the undersea warfare community together to focus on that challenge.
“The summit’s focus on diffusion and adoption encompasses a broader perspective by emphasizing value delivered to the fleet,” said Thomas Choinski, deputy director for undersea warfare at NUWC Headquarters and one of the event’s organizers. “Invention comprises 10 percent of the challenge from this perspective. The predominant challenges we face to achieve diffusion and adoption are social and cultural. These challenges require an interdisciplinary perspective for success that includes the scientific/engineering, acquisition, doctrinal, and warfighter end-use communities.
“The fundamental underlying question is: What motivates people from these interdisciplinary communities to take action? The DAISS sought out people from across these interdisciplinary communities to respond to this question,” he said.
Speakers from NUWC, NWC, the Undersea Warfighting Development Command, other Navy organizations, industry, and academia addressed the undersea warfare community’s need to increase diffusion and adoption of undersea technology with a focus on rapidly adapting to a complex, geo-political environment.
The summit’s goals:
- Characterize the underlying tenets for successful diffusion and adoption of technology;
- Categorize appropriate areas for accelerated diffusion and adoption;
- Identify ways to build capacity and how much is needed for rapid diffusion and adoption;
- Determine what steps can change the Navy’s approach to diffusion and adoption.
Day one’s session focused on “Designing for the Diffusion of Innovation at NUWC” and was led by James Dearing, professor and chairperson of the Department of Communication at Michigan State University, and attended by participants from NUWC Newport Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division, and Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. After Dearing presented his overview, the participants broke into teams to work on challenges such as getting a broader adoption of the iNFUSION tool suite.
Day two’s session took place at NWC and featured professor William Bundy, director of the Gravely Group, welcoming remarks from Rear Adm. Jeffrey Harley, president of NWC, and four panel sessions, including one focused on fleet perspectives.
“Our DAISS symposium gathered undersea warfare leaders who engaged in a highly informative exchange on accelerating the diffusion and adoption of technology,” Bundy said. “A recently completed Gravely Group study on USW (undersea warfare) alternate futures will provide trends and driving forces in technology that will form the basis for workshops and tabletop war games that will be conducted over the summer.”
Day three’s session, an “Innovation Leadership Workshop,” took place at NUWC Newport Division’s Rapid Innovation Center and featured a workshop led by Col. Todd Lyons of the Naval Postgraduate School, who focused his agenda on the eight practices of innovation: sensing, envisioning, offering, adopting, sustaining, executing, leading and embodying.
By the end of the workshop, Lyons left the participants with the understanding that innovation is the adoption of a new practice in a community.
“Ideation and creation is not enough,” Lyons said. “We need innovation leaders at every level that understand how to implement the eight practices to get to adoption.”
As a follow-up to DAISS, NUWC Newport Division will host a panel discussion with a broader audience of its scientists and engineers that will share takeaways from the summit and identify ways to diffuse technology through improved communication skills.
“Single events do little to achieve diffusion and adoption,” Choinski said. “We need sustained meaningful human situational interactions over a period of time for radical innovation to emerge in response to our changing geo-political situation. Contextually based human interaction is crucial. We need to gain a better understanding of how to accelerate the diffusion and adoption of innovation.”