I have been struggling today to write something on innovation. I know it is a hugely important topic for this blog – and I was stimulated by reading Charles Leadbeater’s rather good pamphlet – The Ten Habits Of Mass Innovation.

I like his idea of every citizen becoming an innovator. And I agree there are many improvements to our society that would support this. Not least more tolerance, better dialogue, and a re-thought educational system.

But at heart I fear that, as my friend Duncan says, solutions will still be created “according to power, greed, selfishness, and perceptions of worth”.

This is what troubles me. Can we overcome these very human frailities and truly learn to collaborate, to innovate together? Will I, personally, stick my neck out, and create and innovate in some way that is beyond power, greed, selfishness and perceptions of worth?

I don’t have the answer – perhaps you do?