My New Book - Coolaborative Research in Management - inside out

This post is going to be different than the other posts in the past. This month after a long process my first book came out in print. The book deals with collaborative research (CR) focusing on Academy-Industry collaboration on two levels.

The first is the academic-research-education oriented level, setting the definitions, the models and the theory behind the activity. It relates also to the role of the third main player the Government. In that aspect the book or that part of the book, is a good starting point (I am very modest as you can see) for beginners, or for practitioners seeking to organize their concepts.

The second level is a practical level, dealing with the practicalities of lunching a CR program, participating in it, and what to do when being left out. This part of the book is practical and is meant for practitioners from Industry, Academy government and consultants active in the field.

Writing the book has not been easy, and has been lengthy. The process speeded much when Prof. Shlomo Maital introduced me to Sage publications and the people working there. It was their expertize and competent management that brought us to the end of the process in a relatively short time.

This is a good opportunity to thank those that helped me, Prof. Maital and the wonderful people in Sage publication.

The publication leads to the next stage - getting people to actually read it. The book was not intended as a check point - another thing done, but rather in order to have some impact. This is where you, the readers come in.

Any Ideas?

Regional Development - inter region cooperation

Yesterday I had the honor to participate in the signatory ceremony of twin regions between the region of Emeq-Hefer (where I am a council member) and the Heilongjiang province in China. The agreement is the first step towards increased cooperation between the two regions.
All that is very nice, and creates a lot of good will - especially if there are mission exchanged between the regions and people get to travel. But in the practical world we live in what does it really mean?
In the regional level there is little significance, there are donations, links between institutes and some missions, political, educational and others. But what more can you expect when the regional level of government is limited in scope of action, budget and legal powers to act?
Can there really be a significant advantage created by cooperation between regions?
The EU seems to think so, but seems to think that such cooperation needs encouragement - and it does so financially. The EU concept is based on the fact that beyond trading between regions, there are practical lessons regions can learn from each other and that the cooperation can lead to improvement, economically in both participating regions.
The basis is to find the means for cooperation that will allow the relatively small and entrepreneurial region on one side to learn and teach from the larger bigger region, which operates on a different scale. The key would seem to be intensive and continuous communication between the two regions - a committee to identify the areas for cooperation, allocate the means and plan ahead. Topics for cooperation change with time therefore only lasting communication can provide for real cooperation with time.Although distance may seem as a problem - once personal acquaintance has been established the daily communication can be done electronically.