by Bob Jones, chief executive BSK-CiC

You may have noticed that the term "innovation" keeps cropping up. We can sometimes get a bit confused about what we are talking about when we discuss innovation - for me it is about businesses solving customer problems or businesses solving business problems. Either way it creates value and enhances the growth opportunities for businesses.

However, innovation in all its forms requires the right environment if it is to thrive. I hope you have enjoyed reading our cover feature about all the support available and facilities being developed for businesses across the county. From the SEEDA-funded Innovation & Growth Team and Enterprise Europe Network, to the excellent Canterbury and Medway Innovation Centres, as well as The Bridge at Dartford, Kent & Medway has an increasingly robust foundation on which to build successful, internationally-competitive businesses for the future.

Coupled with our good schools, innovative FE provision and world-class universities we have a winning combination for the future of innovation here. But I believe that facilities and support are only part of the picture when it comes to innovation. 'Life is what happens when you're making other plans' is a quote from (either) John Lennon/Bob Dylan/Mick Jagger (I can never remember which but one of them comes from Kent so let's say it's him!) and I have a feeling that the same is true of innovation.

How many times do we hear about individuals looking for one thing and finding something completely different which becomes the success story.

One of the most famous, of course is the 'post it' note, whose inventor was looking for an adhesive that allowed him to put a temporary marker in his hymn book at church and discovered an office stationery product that is now globally ubiquitous, but the same is true of penicillin and closer to home, the famous blue pill from Sandwich...

So, while good fortune and serendipity play a big part, I think there are a number of principles that are important in creating the right conditions for this to happen. The first is based around the idea that 'enthusiasm cannot be taught, it can only be caught'. We all get interested in things when we meet or see someone with a passion that is infectious and find ourselves caught up in that same delight in a topic.

A good Kent example, for me, is Tony Hart, the late great (and Maidstone-born and educated) presenter of the children's art programmes. His love of art and celebration of the talents of his viewers with a gallery shown each week on the show inspired not only Wallace and Gromit and Aardman Animation by encouraging the creators to show their Plasticine stop-motion character, Morph as a regular feature, but also, judging from the memorial pages on his website when he died last year, hundreds and thousands of young people to pursue a career in art and design.

Similarly, Medway girl Vivienne Westwood scorched a trail into the fashion world that is still smoking, setting any number of fires burning in other young people to take an interest and follow their passion, ignited by her courage and vision.

The next thing, for me, is to create an atmosphere where standards are high - but the environment is supportive. I once had to give an assembly in a High School in Kent I was working in (terrifying, give me any number of businesspeople to talk to rather than a bunch of children sitting cross-legged in front of me!) and couldn't decide on what to say.

The previous evening I watched some football on TV and saw Michael Owen miss the goal a number of times before finally hitting the back of the net. Inspiration! The next day my theme was that FAIL stands for First Attempt In Learning. You have to give it lots of "goes" before you can expect to be successful, and as a community we have to understand that and develop a critical tolerance of it (critical because finally winning out is also important!). Oh, and a year later, as I was moving on from the school, one of the skater boy Year 10s sidled up to me and told me that he had loved the assembly and he'd taken the message to heart; who knew, eh?

And my final thing about innovation is that it needs a "community of curiosity". I have no idea what one of those looks like but I bet the research guys at Google do, or, closer to home, Pfizer.

It sounds like a place where ideas spark, people ask lots of "stupid" questions and where fear of appearing dim is kept to a minimum, but where a constant sense of looking to grab an idea and do something with it is hard-wired. These will exist, in pockets, across our county. How can we join them up, support our businesses, schools, colleges and universities in fuelling the fire of innovation and creativity and driving Kent and Medway as the South East's community of curiosity? No easy answers to any of this of course, but they are challenges I believe we are capable of meeting and overcoming, in spite of, and perhaps because of, the difficult economic times in which we live. As someone once said (it's the last quote, be patient!) "when the money runs out the thinking starts". Let's get innovating.