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WORTH Partnership Project
  • News article
  • 18 September 2018
  • European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency
  • 2 min read

WORTH MENTOR INTERVIEW: JANOS KERESNYEI

WORTH MENTOR INTERVIEW: JANOS KERESNYEI

This week we were happy to be able to interview our WORTH mentor from Hungary: Janos Keresnyei, who is the Creative director of the media agency Kerko Media Kft. He has had an amazing array of industry experience and education which has brought him to a point in his career that involves media and transmedia production, movie making, innovation management, mentoring and coaching.

We spoke with him to find out more about his fascinating experiences, innovation in the industry and advice for WORTH Partnership applicants:


You have a broad range of experiences which involve the support and coaching of innovation, what does innovation personally mean to you?

Innovation could have several meanings indeed. As I see innovation happens when the innovator leaves his comfort zone and breaks the industrial standards in the same action. We can see such kind of changes every day, but only a few become successful. If the phrase is true: ‘The water is for fish, not for the fisherman’, then the successful innovations were developed for the customers’ sake. Fostering disruptive solutions could be triggering for investors, but customers might have different needs based on their primary values.

Why is it important to encourage innovation within the creative industry?

Creativity provides new solutions, products and services just as innovation does, so it might seem to be a tautology to talk about innovation in the creative industry. However, creating something new might not fulfil the criteria of innovation without a marketing – or design thinking – approach. Innovation is a hard journey with many obstacles, difficulties and dead ends and the success are almost unreachable without clear answers a real purpose or market demand.

What would be your best piece of advice for WORTH participants in working as a team towards a mutual outcome?

I am a bit afraid to give advice, but according to my experience, it is useful to find the primary value preferred by the targeted market segment or in other words, knowing what the most significant pain is among those people to whom we want help with a painkiller solution. It also seems reasonable to be very clear on who are our future customers and what are they in need of, before we start any development. I also experienced – not only in WORTH – that partners did not clarify the final goal of the development, which is not easy at all, but essential to know whether we intend to produce and sell our innovative product, or we would use market tailored utilisation of the technology.

Within the current creative industry, what are some trends you like and want to see developed further?

I am glad to see the increasing number of partnerships, networks of people, firms, especially in Europe. Reckoning Europe as a creative brand is an exciting challenge for all participants of the European creative industry. I like the way design is focusing on essential values and it is also good to see how wearable technology is growing. It is good to see the increasing importance of sustainability and environmental awareness from an economic point of view.

Find out more about Janos Keresnyei here.

Details

Publication date
18 September 2018
Author
European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency
News Type
  • Worth News