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Curriculum Vitae Born 1954.12.27

1983	Educated graphic designer from the Danish Design School. One year of study (1980-81) was carried out in Germany at Gesamthochschule Kassel, department of Graphic Design.
1983	Educated as a teacher for adults at public evening schools.
1983-1986	Work at two design studios.
1986- 2000	Own consulting business in design and marketing. See the list of clients.
1993	Educated merconom (in marketing) at Copenhagen Business College.
1997- 2000	Member of a "think tank" within ERICSSON focused on creativity in business.
1997- 2006	Co-founder and later president of "The Danish Initiative for Creativity and Innovation".
1997- 2001	Employed at ERICSSON as a part time Business Developer.
Nov. 1999	Keynote speaker at IIR's conference on "Strategic Innovation" in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Oct. 1999 - May 2000	Deeply engaged in building up the joint venture between Ericsson and Electrolux, called "E2-home".
Feb. 2000	Chairman and keynote speaker of an IBC conference in Denmark on Business Development and Innovation.
Mar. 2000	Speaking at Innovation Network's "Convergence" conference in San Diego.
Oct. 2000	Chairman and keynote speaker of an IBC conference in Denmark on More Business Development and Innovation.
April 2001	Speaking at ACA's annual conference in St. Paul, Minnesota.
April 2001	Speaking at the 3M Innovation Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Summer 2001	Member of the editorial board of a Danish handbook of Innovation and Change Management.
September 2001	Keynote speaker at a Danish conference on Development of Intelligent Products.
December 2001 - today	Fulltime Innovation Manager at Novo Nordisk A/S, Device Research & Development.
January 2002	Chairman and keynote speaker at a Danish conference on Product Innovation.
March 2002	Teaching in creativity on the MBA course on Change Management from the Aarhus School of Business (since then repeated annually).
March 2003	Speaking at ACA's annual conference in Philadelphia.
May 2003	Speaking at the ASTD 2003 International Conference, which for the first time has a track on innovation
October 2003 - 2007	Board member of the European Association for Creativity and Innovation.
March 2004	Speaking at American Creativity Association's annual conference in Houston.
2004 - 2006	Teaching PhD-students on Innovation at RUC, Roskilde University Center.
2004	Guest teaching at the CBS Internship program on "Innovation, creativity & intrapreneuership".
March 2005	Speaking at American Creativity Association's annual conference in Austin.
June 2005	Speaking at ISPIM in Porto, International Society for Professional Innovation Management.
June 2006	Speaking at Indian Innovation Summit in Bangalore, arranged by Confederation of Indian Industry.
January 2007	Beginning as a Doctor of Business Administration student at Copenhagen Business School.
March 2007	Speaking at the American Creativity Association - a small seminar called "Kafka Circle - Revealing the Gatekeepers of Mind".
March 2007	The only external plenary speaker at the Danaher Conferences on Innovation.
October 2007	Chairman of the 10th European Conference on Creativity & Innovation.

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Publications

Arne has written a number of articles in Danish management and future study magazines. The following articles have been published in English language:

"Understanding the End User Drives Strategic Innovation", published in Journal of Innovative Management, Vol. 6, no. 2, winter 2000-2001.

"The Odyssey of the Hansen Family: A Case Story of Disruptive Innovation", published in Creative Odyssey, Mind - Body - Spirit, American Creativity Association, 2001.

"Opening the organizational thinking for new breakthroughs", article in Creativity's Global Correspondents-2004.

"Technology innovation, human resources and dysfunctional integration" (co-written with professor John P. Ulhøi, Aarhus School of Business), published in International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 26, No. 6, 2005.

"Domain Knowledge as a Barrier for innovation" - paper for ISPIM 2005, International Society for Professional Innovation Management. - See abstract of this paper below.

"User-centered innovation" - paper at the Pharmaceutical & Medical Packaging conference 2007.

This is an abstract of the ISPIM 2005 paper:

Abstract: "Domain Knowledge as a Barrier for Innovation"
Arne Stjernholm Madsen, Innovation Manager, Novo Nordisk A/S.

1. Introduction
Domain knowledge is prerequisite to innovation but can also hinder profound new insights. Examples:
" Thomas S. Kuhn notes that fundamentally new scientific insights are being achieved either by very young researchers, who have not been shaped as completely by the existing paradigm as older researchers, or by researchers entering the field from other disciplines.
" The design and innovation consultancy IDEO advice against only inviting people with expert knowledge to a brainstorm; this is regarded as an ideation killer.
Domain knowledge fixes your vision; your latitude of solutions is narrowed by the historical "vocabulary" of optional solutions.

2. Case story: Ericsson Home Communication Concept (HCC)
The case unfolds within Ericsson from 1997 to 2001. The case displays how difficult it is to "sell" a new business idea internally, if it contradicts the top managers' understanding of how the industry is working.

3. Theoretical understanding of the problem
Mark W. McElroy describes innovation as following a path from ideas born in the minds of individuals over formation of self-organized communities, in which these ideas are discussed and validated, and further to adoption within the organization as a whole.
Following Henry Mintzberg, I suggest to see the realized innovation process as a synthesis of both a rational, planned process and an emerging social process, in which self-organizing communities seize ideas from individual employees, test these and advocate them in an ongoing "thought competition" within the organization. The "thought competition" results in mental models, from which the world is interpreted and directions are pointed out. The established mental models are based on the historical domain knowledge, and therefore the vision of the organization is, so to speak, constrained by the past.

4. How to cope with the problem
Given this nature of the problem, the general way to cope with it is to extend the given "vocabulary" of optional solutions by deliberately searching for alternatives, using techniques for enhancing divergent or pattern-breaking thinking.
Another way is to get people out of the comfort zone; by establishing a 'burning platform' or by inviting to a dialogue with upcoming companies which are developing new kinds of services or products, which make no sense for your company.
Similar, top management could deliberately introduce new thinking into the organization, simply by inviting external speakers and setting up a following dialogue.

5. Conclusion
The problem of domain knowledge call for a delicate balancing act; at the one side recognizing and building on the 'core competencies' of the organization - i.e. the domain knowledge - and on the other side trying to disrupt and disregard the same knowledge to a degree that experiences of the past will not hinder the breakthrough of fundamentally new and different ideas. The key is to encourage the internal "thought competition" so that the organization cannot blindly follow the tracks of the past.

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