An Icelandic think-thank is reacting to the wave of negativity caused by the economic collapse, writes KARLIN LILLINGTON

YOUR COUNTRY’S economy is in tatters. The political system and how representative it is of true democracy is under scrutiny, the people seem to have lost a sense of national identity during their country’s boom years and, though the nation has a good profile in the arts, you wonder how entrepreneurs can be inspired with a similar energy and creativity.

So what do you do? If you are a well-known technology industry entrepreneur in Iceland (yes, with a “C”, not an “R”), you introduce some of the most innovative developments from your own industry – open source and “agile” software development principles, and social networking concepts such as “crowd sourcing” – and see if you can reinject the system with a sense of vitality and vision.

It might sound strange, but Icelander Guðjón Már Guðjónsson, who set up his first company at 14, is doing just that through his grassroots initiative the Ministry of Ideas (http://ministryofideas.is), which has successfully held a 1,500-person national assembly to discuss the issues facing the battered nation and collect ideas for spurring change.

In Dublin last week as part of the Ireland Iceland Project (www.irelandicelandproject.com), Guðjónsson told an audience at the Irish Internet Association that he was driven to launch the Ministry of Ideas after the Icelandic economy collapsed.

“I wondered what the hell is going on in my own country,” says the serial entrepreneur, currently chief executive of communications company Mezzina and a board member of Icelandic children’s TV phenomenon Lazytown. “And I wanted to work outside of the concept of money.”

That’s where some of the cutting-edge principles of collaborative software development in community outsourcing came into play. Well-aware that much of what he says about the Icelandic situation rings true for an Irish audience, Guðjónsson notes that during Iceland’s wealthy boom years, when finance and creative banking seemed to be a wealth driver for a tiny country, people seemed to become indifferent to each other. They focused on short-term goals of wealth, and lost a sense of community and national identity.

The way to fix it, he thought, might be to bring together disparate communities from the arts, business, politics, education and society generally and set them talking. Thus was born the Ministry of Ideas. So successful was the assembly that the group now has government recognition.

Far from thinking that business and entrepreneurship have little to do with discussions on society, arts and identity, he thinks entrepreneurs are a key part of developing a better society, and that the way businesses and entrepreneurs think can be a useful model.

For example, during his presentation, he notes that multinational GE has 327,000 employees. Iceland, he notes, has a population of 319,756 people. “GE has a vision” as a company, he says, which employees use to focus their energies and talents. “What about Iceland? We are fewer than GE,” he notes, yet “we are completely lost”. If a company can create a vision, why not a nation?

But discussion of such an important and wide-ranging topic needs to be held outside the existing system, he says, which is how the national assembly came about.

Entrepreneurs in small companies form a key part of the organising behind the Ministry of Ideas initiatives (the “Ministry” itself is based in the House of Ideas building, a kind of think-tank, studio and company incubator supported by Iceland Academy of the Arts and Reykjavík University). Entrepreneurs come together in regular meetings and usually have a specific problem to discuss.

As the group has gelled, the problems have moved to bigger issues that tie in with the “bigger-picture view” the Ministry of Ideas hopes to affect.

Guðjónsson has Irish connections. He was a co-founder of telecommunications company Magnet and lived in Malahide for a time in 2008 while the company was established. Certainly, he thinks the countries’ situations are similar enough to spur innovation and business opportunity.

“Crisis is the mother of innovation. It forces things to formalise to drive change. What I think is happening here in Ireland is fostering a more innovative environment. What it’s done in Iceland is that it has forced entrepreneurs to work together, so they don’t get caught up in national negativity.”

He says the mentality in the technology industry in Iceland “changed dramatically after the crisis. Before we were competing, and now were communicating. We’re building a high-technology industry together. There may be something there for Irish businesses, some way to talk and collaborate together.”

As in Ireland, anger and negativity are widespread in Iceland and he sees them as serious problems unless they can be turned around and directed as a force for change. He uses the martial arts as an example of how aggression can be converted into a structured and positive force.

Technology metaphors come up constantly in conversation. Software development is a major part of how he conceptualises developing a changed society.

“If you study the success of open-source projects, they are led by very strong people within the community. Politics is very afraid to apply the principles of open source, because they think someone is taking their job. But they’re not, they’re just opening up the process.”

Open-source development is also based on an idea of transparency, where code jointly developed by the community of developers is kept public and shared. This too is relevant to politics and society, he says, as is the social network concept of “crowd sourcing” – going to the public for opinions and answers, rather than keeping such conversations closed among political and economic elites.

It’s natural for him to think like this, he says. “In the IT industry, we are in the forefront with these methods [such as open source and agile software development].” They are just as much a big-picture philosophy as a work model and so they seem obvious philosophical frameworks for thinking about broader society too.

He hopes that Irish people will take a look at what is happening in the Ministry of Ideas and consider utilising those concepts. In true open-source fashion, he freely shares a 30-page booklet about how to go about using the process they are pioneering and he hopes it will become a world movement.

“The thing is to trust the process and let the conversations filter out to get what is of importance.” Trust is the currency of a grassroots movement, he says, not quick financial rewards, and that’s why being involved in such a movement is of great advantage to an entrepreneur.

“If you think of the grassroots as your customer, it’s the most difficult customer you can have.”