{"id":33295,"date":"2025-05-06T12:50:57","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T11:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/new-professorship-in-art-and-innovation-we-dont-need-more-ideas-we-need-meaning\/"},"modified":"2025-05-07T10:28:21","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T09:28:21","slug":"new-professorship-in-art-and-innovation-we-dont-need-more-ideas-we-need-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/new-professorship-in-art-and-innovation-we-dont-need-more-ideas-we-need-meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"NEW PROFESSORSHIP IN ART AND INNOVATION: &#8220;We don&#8217;t need more ideas &#8211; we need to find meaning&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Innovation is no longer about solving problems, but about understanding which problems are worth solving. In a world overflowing with ideas, Professor Roberto Verganti highlights art as a powerful tool for creating meaningful innovation. <\/h3>\n\n<p>&#8211; The difficult thing today is not to find solutions to problems, Chat GPT can do that for us in a flash. The hard part is to understand which problems have value for people, and are therefore worth investing in. And art can help us with that, he says.   <\/p>\n\n<p>Roberto Verganti holds the newly established Josefsson Family Chair in Art and Innovation at the Stockholm School of Economics. He will now build a research center on how art can contribute to innovation in a rapidly changing world. <\/p>\n\n<p>&#8211; Art helps us understand ourselves better and interpret the world in new ways, says Roberto Verganti, highlighting four ways art can contribute to innovation:<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Artists are interpreters<\/strong> &#8211; they see and express what is often hidden in society.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Art evokes emotions<\/strong> &#8211; it helps us feel what is important and understand who we are.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Art helps us express ourselves<\/strong> &#8211; it gives language to the meaningful.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Art connects <\/strong>&#8211; for example, through music that touches and unites people.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p><br\/>Art, he says, opens up our empathy &#8211; both for ourselves and for others. It helps us understand what actually matters to the people we want to reach. <\/p>\n\n<p>&#8211; When Apple founder Steve Jobs created the iPhone, he didn&#8217;t do it because he had the best technology &#8211; it was a pretty lousy phone to begin with. Instead, he launched the product with the message: &#8220;your whole life in your pocket&#8221;. That was the real value, explains Roberto Verganti.  <\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Taking leaders on art tours<\/h2>\n\n<p>He has repeatedly taken business leaders on art tours to get them to think differently about innovation and leadership. On one occasion, Roberto Verganti took a group of executives from a Swedish medical technology company to a New York hospital where their products are used. The walls were covered with modern art, including Andy Warhol. The art had been shown to have a positive impact on doctors&#8217; wellbeing and compassion &#8211; which in turn affected their interactions with patients.   <\/p>\n\n<p>&#8211; That experience changed business leaders&#8217; views on what makes their products meaningful to customers.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong><em>Why is a Chair in Arts and Innovation needed?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>&#8211; We need to understand the heart&#8217;s potential for innovation. Understanding this mechanism better is crucial for entrepreneurs and leaders around the world. Therefore, we need to be able to explain, on a scientific basis, how and why art can contribute to innovation.  <\/p>\n\n<p>&#8211; The second track is about understanding more about innovation in the arts. Music is my passion, and I&#8217;m looking forward to working with the Swedish music industry to understand more deeply what is happening in the music world now, with AI. Technology doesn&#8217;t necessarily have to hurt the industry &#8211; on the contrary, digitalization can lift it.  <\/p>\n\n<p><strong><em>What is your best tip for leaders and entrepreneurs on how to use art in innovation processes?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>&#8211; Go down to the Venice Biennale with a question you want answered. You are guaranteed to come home with inspiration, says Roberto Verganti. <\/p>\n\n<p>Contact <a href=\"mailto:roberto.verganti@hhs.se\">roberto.verganti@hhs.se<\/a><br\/><br\/><strong>More reading:<\/strong><br\/><a href=\"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/think-inside-the-box\/\">Article about Roberto Verganti&#8217;s lecture at Esbri Lecture (2017)<\/a><br\/><a href=\"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/esbriplay\/innovation-in-your-box\/\">Watch lecture<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Innovation is no longer about solving problems, but about understanding which problems are worth solving. In a world overflowing with ideas, Professor Roberto Verganti highlights art as a powerful tool for creating meaningful innovation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[470,168,125,122,154,123],"class_list":["post-33295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-innovation-en","tag-leadership","tag-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33295"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33325,"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33295\/revisions\/33325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esbri.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}