Will Davies is running a consultation over at his IPPR blog called A Manifesto for a Digital Britain. Week one asks the following questions about how we can innovate better:

1. Does Britain's competitiveness over the next five years depend on further infrastructural improvements, or should skills, content and media literacy issues become the Government's over-riding concern?

No. It depends upon turning innovation into practical products that can be delivered profitably to a market that exists - that is what Britain has always been bad at doing. That means that the skills and other factors are probably the most important current focus - "making it work", as we say here.

2. What single measure (for instance, new governance structures) could support better relationships between public and private sectors, in the delivery of eGovernment projects?

The most important issue here is to think beyond the major top-down projects that have failed to deliver so far. Everybody knows that Capita and other companies make huge profits from failed initiatives, partly because governnment agrees unimaginative contracts that are full of loopholes, and partly because handing over huge chunks of the public budget to organisations perceived as safe pairs of corporate hands is easy to do.

Instead, let's see seed money invested in innovation on the ground, both by smaller companies and also social enterprises that actually *want* services to improve. This required more imaginative procurement and a non-adversarial approach to contracts - where both sides have an interest in the project working.

If the public sector established the frameworks within which they want projects to operate (standards, common methods, etc.) and then allows solutions to bubble up from the lower levels of delivery, where passionate stakeholders can engage with committed private / social enterprise sector innovators, then government can adapt and assimilate what works without huge financial risks, and without allowing a class of parasitic outsourcing bodies and their shareholders to soak up public funds without contributing to the common good.

3. What is the most significant obstacle to productivity growth in UK organisations, and are there any further interventions that Government could make to remedy this?

Education, education, education. Also, social exclusion, especially in how it affects young people in ethnic minority communities, is a major source of lost productivity.

4. How could ICT be channelled to better forms of workplace flexibility, such as tele-working, and how might public policy support this?

As Will well knows, we believe in the transformational potential of social software and social computing ideas. People generally want to be productive and 'do good stuff', but organisational and bureaucratic barriers sometimes get in their way, until they get worn down into just doing what they have to do.

Focus innovation on supporting individual and elective group formation and collaboration, and you will see a blossoming in personal investment in work. It is not just about tele-working, although this is part of it; it is also about letting people self-organise in pursuit of their objectives. Perhaps some guidelines and support might help, but I am not sure this is a role for government, other than making employment legislation flexible enough to support new working practices.

5. Can Britain realistically expect to replicate the US 'New Economy'? If so, what is the single biggest factor in making it happen?

Let's hope not! The so-called new economy has coincided with the most dangerous budget deficit for some time, so it it hard to judge how successful it is. Evidence suggests there is a well-developed market for services and intangibles, but I can't see many barriers (other than scale) to that developing here as well.

There you go Will. HTH.