Joyce Wycoff, in her Heads Up on Organizational Innovation Weblog shares parts of an interview with John Seely Brown, former head of Xerox's Palo Alto Research centre : 

"John Seely Brown, who calls himself Chief of Confusion, in an interview with Innovation@Work talks about managing innovation. His definition of innovation is the activities that follow invention, what he calls the "path to the sea from invention." We don’t agree with his definition but it’s always wise to learn from this thought leader. So, he states that you cannot "manage" invention, but you can nurture it. You can, however, manage the implementation of the invention.

How does he suggest nurturing invention?

His answer is based on his years at Xerox PARC managing some of the most creative (inventive) people around. PARC did a great job of nurturing invention but a pretty poor job of commercializing their ideas. So, JSB’s guidance on nurturing invention springs from a very successful source.

And the answer is ... conversations! Creating an environment where "serendipitous types of conversations" occur, a place where people from various disciplines bump into each other and start talking about possibilities. At PARC this space included wall-to-ceiling white boards, coffee pots and ways to capture the stuff on the white boards so that it would go to the individual work stations.

JSB reframed the question of how to manage invention to, "How do you enable really interesting conversations, how do you support those conversations, capture those conversations and find ways to keep the conversation going across multiple points of view." [link via Innovation Weblog]

I immediately thought of 'social software' in this context - weblogs as playgrounds that nurture "serendipitious types of conversations"? Wikis as whiteboards ? Coffee pots as spaces around which informal and personal interactions occur, like those enabled by IM tools coupled with presence tools like VOIP and cam ?  And around which social networks can form ? Content Management Systems that enable flow ?